Track Thailand's economy in English — business, trade, finance and market news, covered by Thai PBS World, Thailand's public broadcasting service.
Thailand’s household debt dropped in the second quarter of this year to 89.6% of GDP, from 90.7% in the first quarter, which is the first fall in three and a half years, according to Danucha Pichayanan, secretary-general of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), today.
Unemployment in Thailand in the third quarter fell slightly to 414,000, from 429,000 in the previous three months quarter, but was higher than in the same period last year, when 401,000 people were reported to be jobless, according to the National Economic and Social Development Council.
The Thai private sector has submitted a set of recommendations for how the government can achieve sustainable national development and reach GDP growth next year in excess of 3%.
The Bank of Thailand should be more responsive to the government and should not be too independent, according to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra on Thursday night, as he spoke during a conversation session at a gala dinner with Forbes Media, as a part of the “Forbes Global CEO Conference: New Paradigms”.
Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) has invited victims of iCon Group’s direct marketing scam to file for refunds, from now on until February 17th via AMLO’s website: www.amlo.go.th
The Financial Institutions Policy Committee of the Bank of Thailand (BOT) is to cut the contributions to the Financial Institutions Development Fund (FIDF) by commercial banks, from 0.64% to 0.23% of their cash deposits, which will afford them more liquidity to assist debtors.
Thais who are over 60 will be the next group to receive the Bt10,000 cash benefit, payable before the Chinese New Year.
Thailand’s economic think-tank, the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), has projected that the Thai economy will grow by 2.6% in 2024, compared to only 1.9% last year. Global economic growth is expected to be 3%.
Thai people in their 50s may be the next in line, after the disabled and state welfare card holders, to receive the 10,000 baht cash benefit in the second phase of the “digital wallet” scheme.
Thailand’s Board of Investment (BoI) has granted promotional privileges to two major projects, together worth more than 60 billion baht, to build data centres in the eastern province of Chon Buri.
Thailand’s economy is still growing too slowly, with sluggish new investment, despite a large amount of idle capital—“like a rich man who has no future because he does not know the economic direction and chooses to rely on his accumulated wealth, which will one day run out,” said Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira.
A worried Thai private sector is monitoring possible major changes in US trade policy when president-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20th. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” approach could have both positive and negative impacts on the Thai economy, especially Thai exports.
