UTCC predicts 4.2% GDP expansion in 2022
The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) on Thursday (November 18) announced its estimation of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 at 1.5 per cent expansion due to a more comprehensive vaccine distribution, easing up of lockdown measures and reopening of some tourism provinces.
“We predicted that the improving economy would drive this year’s exports to expand by 16.5 per cent, while the general inflation will be at 1.2 per cent,” said Thanawat Polvichai, rector at UTCC and chief adviser to the UTCC’s Centre for Economic and Business Forecasting.
“As for next year, we believe the GDP will expand by 4.2 per cent, while exports will expand by 5.4 per cent under 1.5 per cent of general inflation,” he added. “The revenue from tourism alone could be as high as 300 billion baht and should help increase economic expansion by 2 to 2.5 per cent.”
However, to achieve this result the government needs to continue rolling out economic stimulus measures, which are estimated to use the budget of at least 500 billion baht,” he pointed out.
Thanawat added that positive factors that contribute to the expansion of GDP in 2021 and 2022 include the above target vaccination rate, declining number of new infections, easing up of lockdown measures, reopening of tourism provinces to foreign visitors, and government’s economic stimulus campaigns and remedy programmes for those affected by the outbreak.
Negative factors that could hinder the estimated GDP expansion include risk of new cluster cases emerging, increasing of policy rate by central banks of major economies, the energy crisis in China that could affect its economic stability, chip shortage that could continue to affect global industrial manufacturing chain, and the tension between the US and China.
