Thai economic recovery likely to continue

BANGKOK, Oct 14 (TNA) -- The Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting of the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce stated that the Thai economy was likely to recover steadily thanks to the unexpected growth of exports and tourism. Thanawat Polvichai, director of the centre, said Thai exports and tourism were picking up faster than earlier expected while the government was accelerating its investment late this year. The centre revised its projection on the Thai economic expansion for this year from 3.6% to 3.9%. It expected the export to grow by 7.5% and inflation would run at 0.6%. Next year the economic growth was anticipated at 4.2% as the center predicted exports would increase continuously, hundreds of billions of baht would be invested in infrastructure projects and 40-50 billion baht would be spent on the upcoming general election, Mr Thanawat said. His centre predicted the Thai economy would expand by 4-5% a year until 2021 and inflation would run at 1.5% next year and more than 2% in 2020 and 2021. The centre also forecast that spending in the vegetarian festival this year would amount to 45.08 billion baht, increasing 2.5% year-on-year due to the higher prices of vegetarian foods. (TNA)