ID :
336592
Sun, 07/27/2014 - 12:42
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Thailand’s Household Debt Rising Fastest in Asia, Says Senior Economist

BANGKOK, July 27 (TNA) - Skyrocketing household debt in Thailand is now expanding highest among Asian countries and investors are advised to monitor it closely, said Sutapa Amornvivat, chief economist and executive vice president of private-run Siam Commercial Bank. According to Miss Sutapa, household debt in Thailand stood at 82.3 per cent of the gross domestic product at the end of 2013 and low-income earners with the average monthly income of less than 10,000 baht captured majority of the household debt. The chief economist expressed her concern that the situation is critical to Thailand’s economy which is recovering as it depresses domestic consumption although the state had injected money into the system such as paying about 90 billion baht to farmers who had sold rice to the government under the now- scrapped rice-pledging programme. In the meantime, she said that prices of agricultural produce are still low. Several of private companies have already stopped overtime payment to their staff, but the household debt is still very high, Miss Sutapa said, adding that domestic consumption has already reached its bottom and should recover if people’s confidence improves as projected. (TNA)

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