Thai economy expected to grow by 6%, exports by 8-11% in 2013

BANGKOK, December 26 (TNA) - The Economic and Business Research Center for Reform of Rangsit University has predicted that the Thai economy should grow by 5.5-6.6 per cent or 6 per cent on average and Thai exports by 8-11 per cent in 2013, thanks to the recovering global economy. Anusorn Tamajai, Dean of the university's Faculty of Economics and Director of the Research Center, said on Wednesday that economic stimulus measures in the United States, Europe and Japan would cause the influxes of money into Asia and the money would also enter the Thai money and property markets, which would raise the value of Thai baht to an unusual level and would affect Thai exports of products made from local raw materials but would benefit businesses which greatly rely on imported raw materials. Anusorn projected that Thailand's inflation would run at about 3.8 per cent next year but it could reach some 5 per cent at some moment, explaining that the excessive capital inflows, a new daily wage hike to 300 baht nationwide and the government’s investment in new infrastructure projects would push up the country's inflation. The dean of the Faculty of Economics acknowledged that Thailand would benefit considerably from the formation of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015, as the Kingdom stands at the center of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and that the Thai government's new infrastructure projects to link Thailand with neighboring countries should guarantee national benefit from the AEC. However, the senior Thai economist cautioned that domestic political uncertainty would remain as a risk factor for the Thai economy next year, urging people to help keep the domestic political situation stable. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Commerce's Department of International Trade Promotion reported that the value of Thai exports during the first 11 months of this year had exceeded 211 billion US dollars, a 2.32 per cent year-on-year increase, but the country had posted a trade deficit of 15.7 billion US dollars during the January-November 2012 period. (TNA)