Despite positive signs that the economy would improve after the May 22 military coup, a senior official at the Bank of Thailand (BoT) said Friday that economic growth most likely would increase by less than 2.7 percent in 2014.
Mathee Supapongse, senior director of BoT’s Macroeconomic and Monetary Policy Department, said Thailand’s economy has shown positive signs after the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) called a meeting with economy-related agencies, aimed at driving the national economy and to prepare government expenditures for the 2015 fiscal year, starting on October 1st.
Mathee Supapongse, senior director of BoT’s Macroeconomic and Monetary Policy Department.
Preparations for the 2015 government budget are expected to be completed within one month.
Also, the government-run Board of Investment (BoI) has set up a special committee responsible for seeking approval for promotional privileges for projects with combined investment of Bt600 billion which would improve investor confidence, said Mathee.
Most importantly, the NCPO has asked the government-run Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) to accelerate payments of about Bt90 billion that the former government still owed to farmers who had sold rice to the state under the rice-pledging scheme, he said.
Once the payment is made, more money would be injected into the economic system to help improve the livelihood of farmers and people at grassroots levels.
However, economic growth this year is expected to stay at 2.7 percent as projected by the central bank in March, said Mathee, adding that all these positive factors should bear fruits for the country’s economy in 2015.
