Covid-19 vaccine expected to push exports up by 3-5% next year
The Thai National Shippers’ Council expects growth of 3 to 5 per cent in the export sector next year, the council’s chairperson Ghanyapad Tantipipatpong said.
The biggest contributor is expected to be the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) pact, which was signed in November.
RCEP marks Asean’s biggest free-trade pact to date, covering market of 2.2 billion people with a combined size of US$26.2 trillion or 30 per cent of global GDP.
The other factors are global progress in the development of the Covid-19 vaccine, which will benefit trade and tourism, especially the export of medical equipment and food from Thailand.
The council said it also expects exports this year to contract only 7 per cent from the previous forecast of 10 per cent, provided the monthly export in the last two months of the year reaches $19.3 billion.
Thai export fell 6.71 per cent in October to $19.38 billion, while imports contracted 14.32 per cent to $17.33 billion.
Exports in the first 10 months of 2020 dropped 7.26 per cent to $192.37 billion. The export of farm and industrial farm products dipped 8.8 per cent, while that of industrial goods fell 4.7 per cent.
