Top banker: Thailand's financial system unaffected by Eurozone crisis

BANGKOK, July 4 (TNA) - A top banker says that Thailand's financial sector and liquidity have been unaffected by the ongoing Eurozone debt crisis, projecting that the Thai economy should grow by 5-6 per cent year-on-year this year. When insisting on the strong status of the Thai financial sector, Bantoon Lamsam, Chief Executive Office (CEO) of KASIKORNBANK, (KBank), a most-established Thai commercial bank, said Wednesday that overall lending of Thai financial institutes should expand by 9-10 per cent year-on-year on average in 2012, in line with his projected national economic growth of 5-6 per cent year-on-year without feared signs of bubbling heat in the Thai property sector and the Thai stock market. Bantoon also maintained that the Bank of Thailand (BOT)'s key interest rate at 3 per cent and the Thai currency at 31-32 baht against the US dollar currently are also considered optimal. The Kbank top executive conceded, however, that, like several global economies, the Thai export sector has already been affected by the European debt crisis, due to a drop in purchasing power of European nations, expressing his support for a Thai government plan to hold weekly meetings of parties concerned to regularly and closely follow up updates of the eurozone financial crisis so that responsive measures will be implemented timely, if needed, to ease negative impacts on the national economy. The KBank CEO suggested that the Thai government implement short-term measures to contain production costs for local manufacturers and exporters and to find out new markets for local exporters; while launching long-term measures as well, covering basic infrastructure restructuring, to boost competitiveness of the Thai export sector. (TNA)