Business

Thursday February 23, 2012

Thai 2012 GDP growth may be above forecast


BANGKOK: Thailand's the economy may grow by more than the forecast 4.9% this year, after a much weaker than expected performance in 2011 due to severe flooding, the country's central bank said.

“If momentum continues, the figure this year may be higher than we expected, as it will compare with a low base last year,” Bank of Thailand governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul told reporters.

The central bank had forecast 2011 economic growth of 1% but it officially came in at just 0.1% after the flooding late last year that battered farmland and big industrial zones.

“Taking the lower 2011 figure of 0.1%, we expect the revised figure to come up by ... up to one full percentage point (over the 4.9%),” Prasarn told a Thomson Reuters forum late on Tuesday.

On Monday, the National Economic and Social Development Board, which compiles GDP data, raised its growth forecast for 2012 by one percentage point to between 5.5% and 6.5 % because of the outlook for private and government spending after the flooding.

The central bank may announce its new forecast after a monetary policy review on March 21. Economists are split on the outcome for rates; some expect the policy rate will be left steady at 3 % but others forecast another cut after the dismal economic performance in the final quarter of 2011.

The devastating flooding pulled South-East Asia's secondlargest economy into a 10.7% contraction in the final quarter of 2011 from the previous three months, the weakest performance on record. - Reuters

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