Private sector sees positive signs of growing Thai economy

BANGKOK, April 11 (TNA) - Thailand's top private business executives see that the national economy should grow by 3-4 per cent year-on-year in 2018, which is within the projected range announced by the Bank of Thailand (BOT). Most chief executive officers (CEOs) of listed companies foresaw the figures for the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth during a recent opinion poll conducted by a research unit of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET). Most of the CEOs, or 64 per cent of them, anticipated their businesses should further expand this year, compared to 45 per cent in the previous survey. The private CEOs mostly viewed that the domestic tourism, public spending, stable domestic politics and domestic demand should be key factors to stimulate the national economic growth in the first half of 2018. Most of the surveyed CEOs, thus, said that their companies have continued laying out investment expansion plans for targeted provincial and overseas areas, including neighboring countries in the ASEAN Community (AC), South Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, to be funded by their accumulated profits, bank loans and bond issuance projects. The private CEOs, however, pointed out risk factors against the growing Thai economy, including the unstable Thai baht, as well as impacts from a new daily minimum wage hike, taken effective as of April 1, 2018, and the uncetain domestic political situation. (TNA)