Thailand’s trade and services confidence index declined from 55.0 to 52.8 in April compared to the preceding month, a senior official said today.
Chawan Svasti-xuto, acting director of the Small- and Medium-Enterprises Promotion Office, said the sentiment indices were lowered from 51.8 to 50.0 in the wholesale sector, from 54.3 to 51.0 in the retail sector and from 57.0 to 56.1 in the service sector.
Confidence indices on economic and business decreased from 71.7 to 62.3 and from 65.2 to 58.8 respectively.
He predicted a worse situation in the next three months when the index may drop from 51.1 to 41.2 in every business sector while the wholesale, retail and service sectors will dip down from 51.8 to 48.3, from 51.5 to 40.1 and from 50.3 to 39.8 respectively.
Confidence indices for the national economy will slide down from 55.5 to 34.8 and for private business from 51.6 to 27.5.
Chawan said the sliding index in April was mainly due to the lower index at present and in the next three months given business operators’ less sales volume and profit while cost of living has successively surged in parallel with the baht.
Entrepreneurs are concerned that tougher competition, higher costs of goods and labor, the national economic situation and people’s purchasing power, fuel and transport prices and consumers’ shrinking demand for goods and services will have a negative impact on their businesses, he said.
