Public spending to boost Thai economy in 2016

BANGKOK, January 5 (TNA) - The private sector projects that the Thai economy should grow by 3–3.5 per cent in 2016, boosted by the government's spending on new mega infrastructure projects. Issara Vongkusolkit, Chairman of the Joint Standing Committee on Commerce, Industry and Banking, told a press conference of the forecast on Tuesday, after a meeting of the three joint Thai private institutions. Issara said the meeting agreed that the Thai economy could grow around the forecast figures this year if the planned government-sponsored projects were implemented. Issara noted that the Thai economy this year should also be cushioned by the growing Thai tourism industry, which welcomed about 30 million international visitors in 2015. For Thai exports, Issara revealed the meeting forecast that they should grow by at least 2 per cent in 2016, after a contraction of 5 per cent in 2015, with major markets for Thai exports including fellow countries in the ASEAN Community (AC), especially Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. However, Issara cautioned that negative factors would remain, including a volatility of the global economy, a projection that the Chinese economy would grow by less than 7 per cent in 2016, which could affect Thai exports. Besides, possibly-domestic unfavourable factors include drought and a drop in prices of agricultural products, which could affect Thai export growth this year. Meanwhile, Amornthep Chawalla, Vice President and Head of Economic and Financial Market Research of CIMB Thai Bank, assessed that Thailand's inflation could remain in contraction in 2016 if oil prices remained lower than 40 US dollars per barrel, after the country's inflation rate contracted by 0.9 per cent in 2015, in line with earlier expectations. CIMB Thai Bank forecast that Thailand’s inflation in 2016 should stay at 0.5 per cent. (TNA)