BoT maintains its policy rate at 1.5 percent

BANGKOK, June 21 (TNA) -- The Bank of Thailand (BoT) maintains its policy rate at 1.5 percent while revises up its GDP growth forecast this year to 4.4 percent. Jaturong Jantarangs, BoT's assistant governor for the monetary policy group and the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) Secretary announced Wednesday the Committee voted 5 to 1 to maintain the policy rate at 1.50 percent. The MPC members viewed that “the Thai economy continued to gain further traction and would achieve higher growth than previously assessed, driven by stronger momentum from both domestic and external demand,” its statement says. Strong merchandise exports have been the main driving force of economic growth while there is stronger momentum from domestic demand, the MPC statement says. Mr Jaturong said the MPC assessed that Thailand’s growth outlook was still subject to external risks that continued to warrant monitoring, especially US foreign trade policies and retaliatory measures from trading partners of the US, and geopolitical risks. He said the MPC would closely monitor impacts of trade protectionism measures which remained highly uncertain. (TNA)