BOT to review Thailand's economic growth forecast in 2019

BANGKOK, March 1 (TNA) - Prompted by rising risk factors, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) plans to soon review its forecast figure of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth in 2019. BOT Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob told journalists on February 28 that his central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) is believed to review its projection of Thailand's GDP growth this year at its next month's meeting to be in line with the updated global situation, including the reemerging tension between India and Pakistan in Kashmir. Veerathai assessed that the unexpectedly reemerging tension between New Delhi and Islamabad, after two Indian military planes were shot down and a military pilot was captured by the Pakistani force in Kashmir recently, could have some negative impacts on the Thai economy through a global economic slowdown and an economic link between Thailand and the two South Asian countries, apart from the ongoing impacts from the unsettled trade war between the United States and China. The BOT governor projected that the Thai economy would, however, keep growing this year despite a slower pace due mainly to the external risk factors, urging domestic business operators to well-conduct their risk management to cope with the situation. The BOT governor said that the Thai central bank will maintain to rely on the Data Dependent Principle, under which globally-updated information and data are closely followed up and used to evaluate and analyze the latest national economic situation and financial policy. The BOT governor stated, meanwhile, that his central bank is also reviewing its regulations on housing loans to control household debts at an appropriate level in the long term, as part of its measures on keeping the Thai economy stable. (TNA)