FTI:TISI is up

BANGKOK, June 18 (TNA) - The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) reports that the Thai industries sentiment index (TISI) has been on the rise, thanks to the recovering Thai economy. FTI Chairman Suphan Mongkolsuthree told journalists on Monday that the TISI in May 2018 rose to the 90.2 level, up from 89.1 a month earlier. Suphan attributed the rising TISI to the positive prospect of the Thai economy viewed by local industrialists, boosted by the country's expanding production, exports, investment, people's purchasing power and sale volumes of goods and services in line with the expanding economies of trading partners. However, the FTI chief cautioned that risk factors remain against the national economic expansion, namely impacts from the rising world oil prices and the strong Thai baht. The FTI chief acknowledged, meanwhile, that confidence in the Thai economy among local industrialists remains sound although the industrial confidence indicator (ICI) over the next three months stood at the 101.6 level in last month's survey, a slightly drop from the 102.2 level in the survey in April. The FTI chairman proposed that the Thai government widen the access to financial sources for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in order to expand their investment opportunities for the sake of their production of more value-added products. (TNA)