Thai government to create balanced national economy

BANGKOK, November 30 (TNA) - The Thai government plans to implement four significant factors in driving ahead the national economy in a balanced manner for sustainable growth and development in the long run. Speaking to private business operators on Thailand’s economic outlook in 2013 in Bangkok on Friday, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittirat Na-Ranong said that the four significant factors the government will implement over the 3-4 years include boosting Thai exports, government spending, private investment and domestic consumption, in an attempt to not only move the national economy forward, but also to balance economic fundamentals. Kittirat acknowledged that over the past one-and-a-half-decade, only export has been the main factor in driving the Thai economy, with its annual growth of up to 20 per cent needed to stimulate the country's economic expansion of only 4-5 per cent; while domestic consumption has almost played no role for driving the national economy during the period. Kittirat insisted that the Thai economy could be further strengthened if the country's economic expansion, distribution of income and price stability, including foreign exchanges, interest rates and goods prices, were taken into a balanced account, noting that in the past, only economic growth had been focused; while the other two factors of the distribution of income and price stability had been neglected and the incumbern government would, therefore, concentrate on the two categories by implementing those four factors. According to the deputy premier, the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra also plans to submit a draft law on its investment of up to 2 trillion baht in new mega-infrastructure projects over the next seven years, which once completed, the projects would facilitate goods transportation, lower logistic costs and sustain Thailand’s economic growth in the long run. Although the planned mega-investment would push up public debts to some 50 per cent of Thailand's gross domestic product or GDP, the deputy premier pointed out it remained lower than 60 per cent of GDP specified by sound financial requirements. The deputy premier also revealed that the Thai government has a policy to reduce its budget deficits, from 400 billion baht in the 2012 fiscal year to 300 billion baht and 225 billion baht in the 2013 and the 2014 fiscal years respectively, to then become less than 2 per cent of the country's GDP and to achieve a balanced budget within the next 3-4 years. (TNA)