BANGKOK, June 30 (TNA) – The Thai National Shippers’ Council (TNSC) has revised down Thailand’s exports in 2015 to contract 2 per cent from zero growth, said Nopporn Thepsittha, president of TNSC.
Poor exports by the country in May which were lower than expected as it contracted 5.01 per cent, making total exports in the first five months to contract 4.2 per cent compared to the same period last year, forced the TNSC to revise down the projected exports this year, said Mr. Nopporn.
Mr. Nopporn said that most major markets showed signs of continued declining including Japan, South Korea, the European Union and India. The U.S., China , Australia and CLMV (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) showed signs of growing.
Thailand’s exports are also facing risky factors including the ongoing severe drought, tax privileges received under the generalised system of preferences, relocation of production base, outflows of capital and currency volatility, said Mr. Nopporn.
Although Thailand has a market share of between 0.06 – 0.07 per cent in Greece, a direct impact on the economy of euro zone is unavoidable and eventually to exporters, said Mr. Nopporn.
Meanwhile, Udom Wongwiwatchai, director-general of Office of Industrial Economics, opined that Thailand’s Manufacturing Production Index (MPI) in May contracted 7.6 per cent from April due to falling in production of key industrial goods including hard-disk drive and certain cars which changed their models.
Exports of industrial products during the first five months this year contracted 2.3 per cent. However, the Office is optimistic that MPI during the second half this year would rebound to the positive zone of between 2-3 per cent.
The Office has not revised its projection of MPI for 2015 as it expects that MPI would grow 3-4 per cent. (TNA)
