BANGKOK, Dec 25 (TNA) — People’s spending in the New Year festival will grow at the smallest pace in 12 years on their economic concerns, the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce found from its survey.
Announcing results from the survey on 1,223 people sampled nationwide on Dec 11-20, Thanavath Phonvichai, UTCC’s director for economic and business forecasting, said results from the survey led to the estimation that people would spend 137.81 billion baht during this New Year festival and the amount would rise by only 1.9% from the previous New Year period.
Of the expected spending, about 58 billion baht would be spent in Bangkok and 79 billion baht in other provinces.
The slight spending growth reflected people’s economic concerns and the small 2.6% economic expansion in 2019, he said.
The survey also showed that 74.1% of respondents would buy gifts for themselves and others, down from 90.1%. Fewer people would have parties and make donations for religious affairs. However, more respondents said they would go on vacation trips.
Many respondents wanted the government to solve household debts, control the prices of necessary products, offer soft loans, improve public education, appropriately handle the baht value and tackle narcotics, Mr Thanavath said.
Meanwhile, Kalin Sarasin, chairman of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, said the economy would improve next year because tourism was picking up and Chinese and Taiwanese industries were relocating their production to Thailand. (TNA)
