BANGKOK, 20 June 2013 Thai Military Bank (TMB) expects a mere 4.2 percent growth in the Thai economy this year after the government policy to stimulate domestic spending has expired amid slow recovery in the global economy, causing the export sector to loose its grip as main economic driver.
According to the TMB Analytics center, Thailand’s economic growth in the latter half of 2013 will be hardly higher than 4 percent, while the entire-year expansion will be at 4.2 percent. The center attributed the projected economic slow-down to the fading of the government’s first car buyer policy and the 350-billion-baht water management project, which tends to be delayed, causing the first allotment of 70 billion baht unable to be disbursed within the 2013 fiscal year.
The center further revealed that the 2.2 trillion baht infrastructure project could be delayed as well, thus failing to inject the due investment into the economic system. The situation will have an indirect impact on the private sector’s investment. This “crowding-in effect” will finally have negative influence on investors’ confidence in the government’s economic policy.
