Track Thailand's economy in English — business, trade, finance and market news, covered by Thai PBS World, Thailand's public broadcasting service.
The 2020 holiday season may not be all that merry for businesses as Thais are expected to spend less due to gloomy economic sentiment and lower income. Bangkokians plan to spend approximately Bt29.8 billion during the New Year festival 2020, a contraction of 3.2 percent compared to last year, according to the latest survey by
Sanitary napkin is always a sensitive subject because the wrong type of cotton pad can easily irritate women’s skins. Recently, this feminine care product became a political debate, sort of, after there were conflicting reports about new taxes on sanitary napkins. The government earlier this week had to refute a report that sanitary napkin was
The Bank of Thailand’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) agreed unanimously on Wednesday to leave the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.25%, after its assessment that economic growth will be less than projected. The central bank’s assistant governor Tittanan Mallikamat said that the MPC has also lowered the growth rate forecast for 2019 from 2.8% from
Thailand is considering the possibility of creating a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United Kingdom after Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s historic victory in the UK election last week, which is expected to pave the way for the passage of the Brexit law soon. Ms. Auramon Supthaweethum, Director-General of Department of Trade Negotiations, said the
The state-run Krung Thai Bank (KTB) has recently rolled out an economic stimulus program as a New Year’s gift, which includes an 800,000 baht Toyota sedan and gold necklaces for subscribers to the “Chim-Shop-Chai” (Eat-Spend-Shop) scheme who spend through their g-Wallet accounts. Fiscal Policy Office director and spokesman for the Finance Ministry, Mr. Lawan Saengsanit,
The Cabinet on December 11 approved the minimum wage increase according to the proposal by the National Wage Committee. In spite of the promises made by political parties before the general election, the minimum wages nationwide will increase by Bt5-6, pushing the minimum wages to Bt313-336 Baht per day. The daily minimum wages will increase
Finance Minister Uttama Savanayana reaffirmed today that the Thai economy this year is just slowing down and is not in a critical situation, with the likelihood that it will pick up next year. While admitting that economic growth this year is disappointing, he said that the Government had rolled out several economic stimulus packages, such
Kasikorn Research Center revises down Thailand’s economic growth this year to 2.5 percent from the initial projection of 2.8 percent and projects the next year’s growth at 2.7 percent. Speaking at the press conference on Monday, Kasikorn Research’s economists said they lowered the growth projections due to lackluster export performance, less-than-expected overall investment and delay
The cabinet today approved the Finance Ministry’s Super Savings Fund (SSF), in place of the Long-term Equity Fund (LTF), which will allow investors in the SSF to deduct 30% of their investments or not more than 200,000 baht from their taxable income. The SSF is designed to encourage individuals to save on a long-term basis,
While most of Thailand’s neighbors have one or two unicorns to boast their success in digital transformation, Thailand is still looking for one. One of the reasons that a unicorn is hard to come by is the fact that Thai entrepreneurs are slow in adopting to digitalization. In 2017, only 28.7 percent of Thai companies
Thanks to the Chim-Shop-Chai (Eat-Shop-Spend) stimulus package, the Government’s popularity has increased from 14.1% in October to 25.6% in November, according to Super Poll. Super Poll Research Office director Noppadol Kannika said today that they conducted a random opinion survey between November 20th and 30th and interviewed 1,098 people in various occupations. He said that
In yet another attempt to boost the economic growth rate, from Q3’s 2.4%, the cabinet today rolled out three new stimulus packages to ease a backlog of 270,000 unsold condominium units, help rice farmers cover harvesting costs and strengthen the grassroots economy. Finance Minister Uttama Savanayana told a news conference this afternoon that the Government
