Flood Impacts Reduce Thailand's GDP Growth By 2.1%

BANGKOK, November 30 (TNA) - The Bank of Thailand (BOT) reported Wednesday that the country's gross domestic product (GDP) growth has dropped by 2.1 per cent, or an equivalent of about 230 billion baht, so far this year due to impacts from widespread flooding over the past couple of months. Mathee Supapongse, Senior Director of the BOT’s Domestic Economic Department, said that the figure is higher than the central bank's earlier forecast of some 1.1 per cent reduction in the Thai GDP caused by the massive floods. Mathee acknowledged that the local industrial sector has been most affected by the country's flooding crisis since late July, followed by the agricultural and service sectors, and that the flood-affected business operators have told him they could first resume their production by January 2012 and could fully return to their normal production by the second quarter of next year. Thailand's business confidence index in all categories, including overall production, purchase orders and investment, in October 2011, meanwhile, fell to a historic low of 36.7, from its 48.5 level in September. The country's projected business confidence index in all categories over the next three months was also officially revised to 42.9, from 50.6, due to growing worries by local business operators over declining domestic demand and shortages of raw materials for their production. Last month, the Thai economy was affected by impacts from both the widespread flooding and the global economic downturn, resulting in a 35.8 per cent contracted production in the local industrial sector, a shrink in Thai exports by 0.1 per cent and a slowdown in the local farm sector, as well as reduced domestic private consumption and people's income. (TNA)