Floods take toll on economy

 Kosit noted that floods have severely affected the manufacturing, trade, tourism and property sectors. This would lead to a contraction of 4 per cent in the fourth quarter, and bring down the annualised growth rate to 1.3 per cent.
 The 1.3 per cent forecast is the lowest so far. The National Economic and Social Development Board and Siam Commercial Bank's forecasts for 2011 are 1.5 and 1.8 per cent, respectively. NESDB earlier projected the economy to expand 3.5-4 per cent this year. It backed the downward revision with the estimate that floods would lead to Bt249 billion in damage.
 The Bank of Thailand at the Nov 30 meeting is also expected to slash its forecast sharply, from 2.6 per cent.