BANGKOK, 31 July 2014 – The Fiscal Policy Office (FPO) under the Finance Ministry has predicted that the Thai economy would grow by 2 percent for the entire year of 2014.
FPO Director-General Kritsada Jinavijarana revealed that the Thai economy is in a recovery mode for the latter half of 2014, as a result of the political clarity and the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO)’s swift actions to implement long-term economic stimulus measures. For this reason, the Thai economy could expand by 4.3 percent in the second half of 2014.
However, the political tensions that took place earlier have caused the Thai economy to contract by 0.6 percent in the first quarter of 2014. Even though the second quarter showed signs of improvement, the Thai economy still had an overall contraction of 0.4 percent in the first half of this year.
Exports have grown by 1.5 percent in the first half of 2014, and are expected to improve by the second half of the year due to a recovering global economy. Nonetheless, exports could grow more than 2 percent if the ruling military is able to expedite the budget disbursements of the 2014 and 2015 fiscal years.
