Thailand’s economy likely returned to growth in the fourth quarter supported by exports and easing of COVID-19 restrictions.
The tourism dependent economy rebounded last quarter to 0.7% year over year after shrinking 0.3% in the July-September period, according to the median forecast of 12 economists polled Feb. 11-17.
In a quarterly gauge, GDP was expected to grow by a seasonally-adjusted 1.4% during the same period after contracting 1.1% the previous quarter. The data will be released on Feb. 21.
“We expect the strong improvement in merchandise exports would help the economy to slowly return to expansion in the fourth quarter,” said Charnon Boonnuch, an economist at Nomura, told Reuters.
“However, with the still-sluggish recovery in foreign tourist arrivals despite the border reopening in November, we expect the recovery to be gradual and highly uneven.”
“The concern over the Omicron outbreak and temporary suspension of the ‘Test&Go’ tourism program in late December-January would affect the economic recovery and delay an international tourism recovery in early 2022,” wrote Lattakit Lapudomkarn, economist at Kiatnakin Phatra Securities, to Reuters.
“However, we expect the impact should be short-lived as the outbreak has proven less severe than expected.”
