Thailand's Public Debt Rises To 40% Of Gdp

[george]

Thailand's public debt rises to 40% of GDP

BANGKOK: -- Thailand’s public debt at the end of February stood at 39.93 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), not far from the statutory ceiling of 50 per cent of GDP as required by

law, a senior Ministry of Finance official said on Monday.

Pongpanu Svetarundra, director-general of the Public Debt Management Office, said Thailand’s national debt at end of February was approximately Bt3.59 trillion.

Of the total amount, about Bt2.29 trillion was in direct government borrowings, Bt1.01 trillion from state enterprises which are not financial institutions, Bt182 billion were debts incurred by government-run financial institutions, Bt110 billion in debts of the Financial Institution and Development Fund and Bt3.68 billion by other

government agencies, he said.

Mr. Pongpanu said out of the total public debt, domestic borrowings stood at about Bt3.20 trillion and overseas debts Bt392.69 billion.

Long-term debts were at Bt3.31 trillion and short-term debts stood at Bt282.60 billion.

Compared to January 2009, Thailand’s public debt in February increased by Bt73.78 billion, Pongpanu said.

-- TNA 2009-04-27

[samgrowth]

Free 2,000 baht to buy 10 million vote each.

Thank you very much Mark, now my children will have to pay for all those votes you bought with public money.

[LawnGnome]

Free 2,000 baht to buy 10 million vote each.

Thank you very much Mark, now my children will have to pay for all those votes you bought with public money.

What a ridiculous comment. You can't criticize this, without criticizing every other G-20 country as well, because they all did this.

[Penkoprod]

What a ridiculous comment. You can't criticize this, without criticizing every other G-20 country as well, because they all did this.

I never got no free money given to me............all i have done is paid out (against both my will and my wishes) an AWFUL lot of my taxes to prop up rich banks.

Where do you get this info from????

Penkoprod

[LawnGnome]

What a ridiculous comment. You can't criticize this, without criticizing every other G-20 country as well, because they all did this.

I never got no free money given to me............all i have done is paid out (against both my will and my wishes) an AWFUL lot of my taxes to prop up rich banks.

Where do you get this info from????

Penkoprod

Well seeing as how you "Never got no" skooling and edjamakation neither, I'd say you have a legitimate complaint.

Edited April 27, 2009 by LawnGnome

[dogleg]

What a ridiculous comment. You can't criticize this, without criticizing every other G-20 country as well, because they all did this.

I never got no free money given to me............all i have done is paid out (against both my will and my wishes) an AWFUL lot of my taxes to prop up rich banks.

Where do you get this info from????

Penkoprod

Well seeing as how you "Never got no" skooling and edjamakation neither, I'd say you have a legitimate complaint.

[angiud]

Don't cry, this year Italy will have a debit of 120% of the GDP...

[midas]

40% of GDP for LOS doesnt seem that bad.........UK debt will double to 79% of GDP by 2013

[basjke]

not far from the statutory ceiling of 50 per cent of GDP as required by

law,

Please explain to me what this means.

[thaiwanderer]

no problem because gdp is plunging also

[RubbaJohnny]

I highly recommend the ancient tome once required reading at Bristol Economics Dept

"How to lie with statistics"

There's a witty version online

[LawnGnome]

What a ridiculous comment. You can't criticize this, without criticizing every other G-20 country as well, because they all did this.

I never got no free money given to me............all i have done is paid out (against both my will and my wishes) an AWFUL lot of my taxes to prop up rich banks.

Where do you get this info from????

Penkoprod

Well seeing as how you "Never got no" skooling and edjamakation neither, I'd say you have a legitimate complaint.

Piss taking prick of a keyboard ninja !!!!!

If you can't answer the question, or back your statement with facts, resort to asenine comments huh?

Penkoprod

Thanks man, Keyboard ninja...priceless!

[MyphuketLife]

not far from the statutory ceiling of 50 per cent of GDP as required by

law,

Please explain to me what this means.

key word being CEILING, the maximum debt to GDP per thai law is 50%... Once they reach 50% they can't borrow anymore...

[kebabbaro]

key word being CEILING, the maximum debt to GDP per thai law is 50%... Once they reach 50% they can't borrow anymore...

Whoa, Thai law on gvt's borrowing is better that laws in any of the G20 countries

Wish we had a law like that in my home country...

[chrislarsson]

key word being CEILING, the maximum debt to GDP per thai law is 50%... Once they reach 50% they can't borrow anymore...

Whoa, Thai law on gvt's borrowing is better that laws in any of the G20 countries

Wish we had a law like that in my home country...

They have this law in America as well, and every time the debt gets close to the ceiling, they change the law. What else can you do? Thailand will have to do this as well.

[lapamita]

40% of GDP,,,,,, this year us depts increasse to 243% of GDP when included stategarantees to banks , fed and others included FDIC and other programms.

nearly 100% for GB, italy and much over for greece and others.

thats why the baht stay strong against other currencys

[lapamita]

ahhhh............

since october 2006 the usa and the imf is creating our new currency,,china and india are most intrested in that. but the rulemaker for the future currency,are the same people who rule the financesystem,sommers,shalom bernanke and others.

the ECU was a papper currency followed 10yr later by the EURO.

the new currency is XDR or named special drawing rights.....its created for massive currencycrisis

1 XDR is 0.91 euro at the time XDR is not tradeable at the time

for explanation look wikpedia special drawing right or SDR or XDR

the US is trying to controll the system again after may fail in the future on deptrepayment or a currencycrunsh

[jayboy]

Fatal flaws that wrecked Thailand's promise

By David Pilling, Financial Times

Published: April 29 2009

In 1995 The Economist projected that by 2020 Thailand would be the world's eighth-largest economy. Its forecast, which now looks a tad, shall we say, optimistic, followed a 10-year run in which Thailand muscled out even China as the world's fastest-growing economy, expanding at a blistering 8.4 per cent a year. Those were the days.

The decade after the Asian financial crisis, which began with the devaluation of the baht and ended with the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister, has not been so kind. Although the country bounced back from the 1997 devaluation, when it carelessly misplaced 15 per cent of gross domestic product in 18 months, the economy never recovered its former vigour. It has bumbled along at a respectable, but less than socially transformative, 4-5 per cent a year. This year its economy is likely to shrink by some 5 per cent. In that, admittedly, it is not alone.

Yet it is fair to ask why Thailand has failed to fulfil its potential. Once mentioned, at least by the excitable, in the same breath as high-tech Taiwan, it is now more likely to be grouped with the high-maintenance Philippines. Far from closing in on the world's eighth-biggest economy – a slot currently occupied by Spain, with an output nearly six times that of Thailand – it languishes in 33rd place. In per capita terms it plods in at an even more pedestrian 78th, with an income of $3,851, far below Taiwan's $17,000 although above the likes of Indonesia at about $2,000.

Adding to its woes – or arguably helping to explain them – Thailand is stuck in a seemingly intractable political crisis. Long a country of coup and counter-coup, for years it nevertheless managed to maintain something approaching political stability. Now it is caught in a trap in which a previously disenfranchised rural poor wants a say in a political system still dominated by the Bangkok elite not yet prepared to allow the "barbarians" through the gate. The stand-off has undermined the already shaky confidence of foreign and domestic investors.

This month, Thailand showcased its political chaos for flummoxed regional leaders attending the Association of South-east Asian Nations summit. The gathering was cancelled and the likes of Wen Jiabao, China's premier, had to be evacuated after the conference facilities were stormed by a brightly coloured mob of Mr Thaksin's supporters. In subsequent clashes on the streets of Bangkok at least two people were killed. A car carrying Abhisit Vejjajiva, the third prime minister since democracy nominally returned in 2007, came under attack after he declared a state of emergency. There are, Mr Abhisit said with admirable understatement in a Financial Times interview last week, "some major challenges we have to face up to".

One of the reasons Thailand has failed to flourish as once predicted is that its growth was built on weaker foundations than supposed. What was in the 1950s an economy based on US patronage, and exports of rice and tapioca, developed into one fuelled by Japanese capital looking for a home after the revaluation of the yen in the mid-1980s. Japanese companies poured in money, building an industrial base, especially in car manufacturing, that remains central to whatever economic success the country still enjoys.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, local entrepreneurs clambered aboard, funded by a powerful local banking system and oiled by age-old connections. The political situation was always chaotic; there have been 18 coup attempts since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, 11 of them successful. But for much of the time, according to Supavud Saicheua, an economist at Phatra Securities, the country maintained an uneasy equilibrium between monarchy, military, aristocracy and bureaucracy.

Thailand produced few truly world-class companies. It remained, by and large, a rentier economy, funded by foreign capital and driven by foreign expertise. At the time, of course, that was all the rage. In 1991, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund held their annual meetings in Thailand, a testimony to its openness and liberal reform. That went to Thailand's head. In 1993 it went the whole hog, liberalising its capital account and setting in train the disastrous over-borrowing in foreign currency that ended with the 1997 crash.

The crisis led to what Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker call in their book Thailand's Boom and Bust a "decapitation of Thailand's [foreign-currency indebted] capitalist class". The country has never recovered from the mass beheading. Today, bank lending to business languishes at two-thirds of 1990s levels. The economy has become more dependent on foreign demand, a liability in a world of frightened consumers. Trade accounts for 150 per cent of GDP, against 80 per cent before 1997.

The destruction of Thailand's entrepreneurial class helped pave the way for Mr Thaksin, one of the few capitalist survivors of the crisis. He converted his wealth, which came courtesy of a telephone monopoly, into political capital, riding into office with the votes of a newly empowered rural poor.

Mr Thaksin's election and subsequent conduct proved too much for a Bangkok elite that had not previously seen fit to share power. Its displeasure was finally vented in the coup of 2006, an attempt to roll the country back to a prelapsarian land of smiles. But there is no going back. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear how Thailand can move forward either.

[thaiwanderer]

is the debt from the last financial crisis (repayments of which have hardly been made) included in the 'public debt'?