BANGKOK, 21 August 2012 – The Bank of Thailand (BoT) is confident this year’s GDP can expand by 5.5-6% while promising to monitor inflation after the government decided to end its commodity price control policy next month.
BoT Governor Prasarn Trairatworakul said on Tuesday that the central bank would monitor commodity prices to see how they affect inflation when commodity producers are allowed to raise the prices of their products this September.
Although it had been reported that the 2nd quarter GDP grew only 4.2%, Mr Prasarn said he was still certain that this year’s overall GDP would record an expansion of around 5.5-6% as forecast earlier, mainly due to the increase in domestic demand. He added that this growth rate would not mean that interest would be on the rise as feared by the National Economic and Social Development Board.
