KRC:Thai economy to keep growing in 1st quarter 2013

BANGKOK, February 1 (TNA) - The Kasikorn Research Center (KRC) says that the Thai economy will keep growing in the first quarter of 2013, by over 5 per cent year-on-year, boosted by the recovering world economy, although risk factors have remained. The leading Thai private think tank pointed out on Friday that an economic downturn in the United States has been improving, resulting in the recovering global economies, including the Thai economy, now foreseen to expand by about 5.3 per cent year-on-year in the January-March 2013 period. Bangkok-based research firm also projected that the Thai economy should expand by 4.5-5.5 per cent on average this year. The KRC cautioned, however, that impacts from rising production costs and the ongoing Thai baht appreciation have remained as risk factors for the national economy, suggesting that the Thai government implement measures to cushion the impacts and speed up the injection of state budgets to fund its new water management and other mega-infrastructure development projects to drive ahead the national economic growth to about 5 per cent year-on-year as anticipated. (TNA)