Pridiyathorn expects GDP to grow 4%

MR PRIDIYATHORN DEVAKULA, deputy prime minister in charge of the economy, said at a seminar arranged by the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday that he was confident Thailand’s gross domestic product would expand by at least 4 per cent this year.

He said it would be kicked off this quarter by the recovery of private investment, the increase in domestic consumption, and government expenditure, which will increase greatly between now and March.

 

‘Uncertainty factored in’

Meanwhile, Pridiyathorn said exports had “stabilised” and the government had already factored the uncertainty surrounding the global economic recovery into its economic forecast. 

He believes the export sector will expand by around 2 per cent this year. 

“A GDP expansion of 4 per cent in 2015 is definitely achievable and the government’s job is to increase its spending on investment. We are planning to increase the average disbursement rate of the government investment budget from around 78 per cent to more than 80 per cent this year,” he said.

The government budget for investment in the 2015 fiscal budget year is set at Bt459 billion.

Pridiyathorn expects domestic consumption to increase even further this quarter than in the final quarter of last year because of the falling oil prices.

Private investment is expected to recover at a greater pace after an increase of operation permits for opening factories, or Ro Ngo 4 licences, from the Industrial Works Department. A total of 3,800 factories won such permits between May 23, the day after the military’s seizure of power, until the end of last year.

He said that of those 3,800 factories, 1,608 had opened in the last two months of 2014. 

“That means there are more than 2,000 factories still waiting to open this year, and I believe that at least 1,500 of them will open in the first quarter,” he said.

Meanwhile, he also expects some of the capital from the government stimulus package worth Bt324.47 billion that was earlier delayed to pour into the first economic quarter of 2015. He believes also that at least two-thirds of the Bt81 billion worth of government investment projects in the 2015 fiscal budget have had contracts signed. 

The Bt74 billion worth of leftover government projects from 2014, for which contracts have already been signed, will also go on stream this quarter.