Automotive Production Cut Dampens Thai Economy

BANGKOK (Thailand), Oct 23 (Bernama) -- Thailand's economy is expected to grow only between 1.7 and 1.8 per cent this year if a drop in automotive production and export is anything to go by, Supant Monkolsuthee, Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) chairman, said. He said the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth was likely to grow less than the two per cent projected earlier by FTI as the automotive sector export, a factor that mobilised economic growth, had dropped for two consecutive months. FTI also cut its projected production of vehicles this year to 2.1 million units from 2.2 million due to weak domestic market. Surapong Paisitpatanapong, FTI's Automotive Industry Club deputy chairman, said the automobile export in September declined by 17.49 per cent to 97,570 units in term of volume and fell 16.32 per cent to US$1.35 billion (43.802 billion baht, US$1 = 32.32 baht) in terms of value. He said the total export of automotive sector, including auto parts and spare parts, in September stood at 65.997 billion baht, a contraction of 12.63 per cent compared with the corresponding period last year. Meanwhile, for the January-September period, export stood at 838,952 units, a decrease of one per cent but in terms of value increased 2.96 per cent to 395.012 billion baht against the corresponding period last year. The total automotive export, including auto parts, for the nine months combined rose 4.5 per cent to 587.862 billion baht. On the other hand, domestic sales in September dropped 27.5 per cent to 68,843 units from the corresponding month last year while the January-September sales contracted by 37.5 per cent to 648,116 units from the corresponding last year. The weak sales were attributed to the country's economic slowdown, absence of budget boosters, lower price of agricultural produce as well strict procedures imposed by banks on loans due to high household debts. Automotive production in September fell 15.63 per cent year-on-year to 164,299 units and shed 27.03 per cent to 1.408 million units for the nine months of this year. --BERNAMA