Confidence in Thai economy among businesses on the rise

BANGKOK, December 18 (TNA) - Bangkok-based University of the Thai Chanber of Commerce (UTCC) reports that the confidence in the national economy among business operators has been on the rise. UTCC Rector Saowanee Thairungroj told journalists on Tuesday that the Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) Confidence Index last month, which came from her university's latest survey on member businesses of TCC across the country, generally rose to the 48.3 level, from the 48.0 level a month earlier. The UTCC rector attributed the increased confidence index to the growing domestic tourism and other service sectors, as well as the government's rising spending and investment during the first few months of the present 2019 fiscal year, which started on October 1, 2018, and the positive prospect of the country's external trade, border trade, employment, the prices of major farm products and general consumption. The UTCC rector said that the TCC Confidence Index last month rose in Greater Bangkok and all other Thai areas, except in the southern region due to impacts from a drop in natural rubber and oil palm prices and the gradually local tourism recovery. The UTCC rector acknowledged that the TCC Confidence Index in the eastern Thai region has only exceeded the 50-level benchmark so far, with the index last month alone standing at the 52.5 level. Meanwhile, Thanawat Phonvichai, Director of the UTCC's Center for Economic and Business Forecasting, told reporters that the rising TCC Confidence Index show the expanding Thai economy, though driven mainly by only the domestic tourism and service sectors, as well as the Thai government's welfare programs for low income earners. Thanawat projected that the Thai economy should, thus, grow by about 4.2 per cent year-on-year on average in 2018 and should further grow by 4-4.5 per cent year-on-year on average in 2019 if domestic interest rates remained intact, the ongoing trade war between the United States and China would not escalate and the number of foreign tourist arrivals in the country would keep increasing. (TNA)