BOT:Domestic demand keeps rising

BANGKOK, October 31 (TNA) - The Bank of Thailand (BOT)reports that the domestic demand for goods and services has been expanding in line with the rising private consumption and the government's spending on public projects. BOT Director for Macroeconomic Policy Office Pornpen Sodsrichai told journalists on Wednesday that the growing private consumption in almost all categories of Thai products and spending in the public sector has generally boosted the domestic demand despite its slowdown last month, generally, from a month earlier, while last month's private investment became stable. Pornpen said, however, that Thai exports in September shrank by 5.5 per cent year-on-year in line with a slowdown in external demand, caused mainly by impacts from the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, with exports of Thai rubber products hardest hit, and by impacts from storms striking cargo routes from Thailand to such major trading partners as Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The BOT director acknowledged that the ongoing trade war between the immense US and the Chinese economies could, on the other hand, boost export of many Thai products, including those being sensitive to rising world oil prices namely farm products, gems and jewelry, as well as machineries and accessories. According to the BOT director, the Thai central bank is monitoring the updated situation before releasing a public report on its revision of the country's export and economic growth projection in 2018 in the coming weeks. The senior BOT director indicated that the average national economic growth in the last quarter of this year, which will mainly depend on such key factors as the government's spending on mega-investment on infrastructure projects, the private consumption and the domestic tourism, will determine whether the Thai central bank will have to revise its earlier forecast of the 4.4 per cent national economic growth on average in 2018. (TNA)