The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has slashed its economic growth forecasts for Thailand to 4.3% this year and 4.1% next year as the global economy sputters.
The growth forecast for 2018 was trimmed from 4.5% predicted in September to 4.3% after the third quarter expansion slowed to 3.3% from 4.6% in the second quarter, according to an update of the Manila-based institution’s Asian Development Outlook report.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has retained its growth forecast for Southeast Asia at 5.1 percent for 2018 assuming robust consumption and infrastructure investment, says a report from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released on Wednesday.
Growth in domestic consumption and private investment were offset by falling exports in the third quarter. On the production side, manufacturing growth decelerated by half to 1.6% in the three months through September from 3.2% in the preceding quarter, mainly reflecting slower growth in vehicle production, it said.
“Moderation in global demand for exports is, however, dampening growth prospects for the subregion, and particularly for Malaysia and Thailand, in 2018 and 2019,” the report says.
On the production side, the report says that Myanmar and Thailand benefitted from improved agricultural output, which languished in Indonesia, Laos and the Philippines in the wake of natural disasters and bad weather.
Moreover, the report says that manufacturing in Malaysia and Thailand was undercut by weaker demand from trade partners, but it expanded in Cambodia and Vietnam.
Export volume fell in the third quarter as the volume of agricultural exports dropped because of a high base effect, but also pressure from China–US trade tensions, a decline in domestic aquaculture production, and weaker growth in manufacturing export volume as economic growth slowed in some trade partners and tensions rose over protectionist trade measures.
Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to a 90-day truce on further tariffs as they try to negotiate a deal.
The ADB also kept its 6.6% and 6.3% growth projections for China, as well as its 7.3% and 7.6% growth expectations for India for both years.
