BOT likely to gradually cut key interest rate in 2012

BANGKOK, November 21 (TNA) - Bangkok-based Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) assessed on Monday that the Bank of Thailand (BOT) is likely to gradually cut its key interest rate, or the repurchase rate, next year to stimulate the national economy, in the wake of the country's flooding crisis in the second half of this year. SCB Assistant President Sutthapha Amornwiwat, who is also chief economist of the bank's economic research and business centre, said that the central bank was foreseen to cut its key interest rate phase by phase, by 0.50-0.75 per cent, to some 3 per cent by the end of 2012. The SCB executive and chief economist also forecast that the Thai economy should expand by only some 1.8 per cent this year due to impacts on national farm, industrial and service sectors from the flooding crisis, the worst in Thailand in half a century. According to the SCB chief economist, the Thai economy will likely rebound quickly next year, with the country's gross domestic product (GDP) expected to expand by 4.5 per cent on average and export growth by some 11 per cent. (TNA)