BANGKOK, July 22 (TNA) – The governor of the Bank of Thailand (BOT) expects the gross domestic product will increase by 3.3% this year and 4.2% next year while the number of visitors is rising faster than anticipated and should reach 6 million throughout this year.
During his “Meet the Press” session focusing on economic recovery solutions, BOT governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput said the Thai economic recovery became clearer but had not happened to all sectors. He assumed that there will be about 2.5 million people in the country who are unemployed and underemployed this year.
Headline inflation for 2022 should run at 6.2%, not 4.9% as forecast in March, the central bank governor said.
Regarding the indicators of steady economic recovery in the second quarter, Mr Sethaput said consumption in the private sector increased by 9.9%, the export value rose by 9.7%, the income of workers in non-agricultural sectors excluding income from government measures went up by 10.3% and farmers’ income excluding what resulted from government measures was up by 16.7%.
The BOT governor added that he hoped to see steady economic recovery because high inflation affected the well-being of people, especially low-income earners.
To guarantee steady economic recovery, he said monetary policies had to be implemented to curb inflation. Interest rate hikes would not stall the economy and financial institutions were strong enough to deal with monetary measures aimed at supporting economic recovery, Mr Sethaput said. (TNA)
