BANGKOK, 27 May 2011 – According to the Office of Industrial Economics (OIE), the previous natural disasters in Japan have caused the Thai Manufacturing Production Index (MPI) for April 2011 to decline by 7.81 percent.
As a consequence of the deadly earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March, OIE Director Suttinee Poopaka indicated that the MPI for April this year had declined by 7.81 percent from the same month last year to stand at 165.89 with the Capacity Utilization Rate of 54.6 percent. Industries which contributed to the decrease include the automotive, hard disk drive and food industries.
Ms Suttinee pointed out that car production and sales had dropped 27.8 percent and 17.2 percent, respectively, mainly because Japanese companies producing car parts had been damaged by the disasters and had difficulties meeting Thailand’s orders. Some of the companies could only operate for 17 days in April.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s production of hard disk drives decreased by 16.8 percent while sales dropped 13.3 percent on account of the shrinking demand and the debut of new computer models. As for the food industry, the production and sales also contracted by 4.6 percent and 6.6 percent, respectively, due largely to the flooding in the southern region.
