Bank of Ayudhya: Thai Economic Recovery to Take 2.5 Years

BANGKOK, June 19 (TNA) — Bank of Ayudhya expects the Thai economy to show U-shaped recovery and possibly take two years and a half to return to its pre-COVID-19 condition in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Somprawin Manprasert, chief economist and executive vice president of Bank of Ayudhya, said the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) had unprecedented impacts on the economy and the bank predicted the Thai economy would shrink by 5% this year.

The economy would recover slowly and the business sector would clearly adapt to new trends next year, he said.

He saw four factors would sustain economic impacts on medium and long terms, namely business shutdowns due to lockdown measures, falling demand, stalled supply chains throughout the world and behavioural changes of consumers.

According to Mr Somprawin, 26 out of 60 business types are seriously affected by COVID-19. Their production formed 46% of total production. Twenty-four business types that accounted for 43.1% of total production face moderate impacts and only 10 business types with 10.9% of all production feel soft impacts.

Hospitals and food production business should restore their pre-COVID-19 condition next year. Hard-hit retail, wholesale, electricity and natural gas businesses would recover faster than other businesses. Recovery would take longer time for air transport, service businesses and businesses related to physical contacts and crowd gathering in public places.

Most industries would not return to their pre-COVID-19 status next year. Although Thailand had an efficient health system and controlled the disease within the first half of this year, global economic recession would continue until next year, Mr Somprawin said. (TNA)

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