BANGKOK, 4 June 2015 – The World Bank is concerned about Thailand’s economic structure, especially the nation’s export sector. The institute predicted the Kingdom’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) would grow 3.5 percent this year.
Mr. Ulrich Zachau, the World Bank Country Director for Southeast Asia, attributed the forecast to the lowered petrol price and the slow growth rate of the nation’s export sector. He said the current underperforming economic state of its trading partners, such as the U.S. and the European Union, contributed to the sluggish export growth.
Mr. Zachau said the bank is deeply concerned about Thailand’s export sector, which grew 13% during 1997-2002, but the rate dropped to less than a percent between 2003 and 2005. He said the plunge was a result of the labor wage increase which crippled the export sector.
Meanwhile, Miss Kirida Bhaopichitr, a Senior Economist at the East Asia and Pacific Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit of the World Bank, estimated the sector would grow 0.5 percent this year and imports would contract 2 percent. She predicted the export sector in the latter half of the year would grow more than the former, thanks to the economic recovery of the nation’s trading partners.
