Why Are You Even Here? The Surprising Attitudes of Some Expats in Thailand

[webfact]

2012 export growth likely only 5%: Deputy Commerce Minister

BANGKOK, Oct 24 - Deputy Commerce Minister Poom Sarapol said on Wednesday Thailand's export growth this year could reach only 5 per cent rather than the ministry's target of 15 per cent.

Speaking at a news conference here, the minister said the value of monthly shipments in the remainder of the year should total $20 billion and that may help export growth this year to reach 5 per cent.

Exports increased for the first time in nine months in September with shipments rising by 0.20 percent year-on-year last month to US$20.7 billion. Thai exports to emerging markets rose amid a worsening European debt crisis which has dampened demand for Thai shipments.

The commerce ministry reports exports in the agricultural and agribusiness sector dropped by 22.8 per cent. Nonetheless, exports in the industrial sector increased by 8.4 per cent.

Exports in the first nine months of this year dropped by 11.6 per cent in the agricultural and agribusiness sector but rose by 0.4 per cent in the industrial sector.

Imports slipped by 7.7 per cent year-on-year last month for a trade surplus of $1.152 billion.

During the first nine months of this year, Thailand's exports totalled $172 billion, down by 1.13 percent year-on-year, while imports amount to $184 billion, up by 5.76 per cent year-on-year, leaving the country with a $11.9 billion trade deficit. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2012-10-24

[kblaze]

the scary thing is that stripping out gold, exports actually SHRUNK 7.5% YoY...

Why? look no further than rice and rubber.. down 34.9 and 41.1 percent respectively. Seems the price interventions are doing their job..

Normally an economist would be fired for having to trim their forecast by 66% (wasn't too long ago the govt was still trying to predict 12-15% export growth when everyone knew it was a joke). But this is the land of white lie data.

[webfact]

Thailand says to miss export goal on soft demand

BANGKOK, Oct 24, 2012 (AFP) - Thai exports are likely to miss growth targets for 2012, a top official said Wednesday, as the global economic slowdown and a slump in rice shipments hit demand.

Export growth for the whole year could reach five percent -- 10 percentage points lower than forecast -- with sales to overseas markets slipping more than one percent between January and September to $172.35 billion.

"We probably cannot reach the figure of 15 percent for export growth," Deputy Commerce Minister Poom Sarapol told reporters.

Imports were up 5.76 percent to $184.3 billion January-September, creating a trade deficit of $11.95 billion, compared with a $5.3 billion surplus in the same period of 2011, he added.

Thai rice shipments were worst hit, suffering a near 37-percent slump in the first nine months of the year, according to the commerce ministry's estimates.

Analysts say a controversial government scheme launched by the Thai government to buy rice from farmers for 50 percent more than the market price has hit the competitiveness and created massive stockpiles of the grain.

"Thailand has lost 40 to 50 percent of (its share of) the world rice market," Thanavath Phonvichai, an economist from the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, told AFP.

But the scheme has improved the lives of the farmers and bolstered domestic food security, the economist added, quoting research predicting that Thailand could regain its status as the world's number one rice exporter next year.

Thai exports showed signs of recovery in September, with shipments increasing 0.20 percent to $20.78 billion on the corresponding period in 2011.

-- (c) Copyright AFP 2012-10-24

[jonclark]

Nonsense - everything's fine - nothing to see here, move on, you're all imagining it. By tomorrow the PM will have set up a committee to look into it and everything will be okay.

That is the standard PTP party line isn't it?

[asiawatcher]

Results and facts as opposed to hypothetical political promises. Realty bites.