The 76 billion baht frozen assets of ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra could be seized as the court is being pressured to do so by Thaksin’s rivals, Jaturon Chaisaeng, former acting leader of the dissolved Thai Rak Thai Party, said on Saturday afternoon.
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Thaksin’s assets likely to be seized
Political unrest and the shutdown of the two airports in Bangkok in late November severely affected tourism and consumer confidence in Thailand. Real GDP is projected to contract by 2.7 percent in 2009, as the global outlook remains negative and external demand continues to contract. The fiscal stimulus and monetary expansion implemented by the authorities are likely to partially mitigate the impact of the slowdown, allowing growth to resume in the fourth quarter of 2009 assuming a better outlook for the global economy in 2010..
Thaksin’s assets likely to be seized
So far, the Thai government has enough capacity to finance the first economic stimulus package and the three-year public investment plan. In the face of shrinking revenues, the government estimates its budget deficit to be about 525 billion baht, or 6 percent of Thailand’s gross domestic product, in the fiscal year ending September 2009. It is also seeking loans from domestic and external sources to shore up the budget and support planned investment.
However, the World Bank cautioned that, for public debt to remain manageable, budget deficits will need to be reduced over the next few years and growth needs to return its long-term average, highlighting the importance of using the crisis as an opportunity to enhance growth prospects.
Private consumption in Thailand and investment also grew by more in 2008 than they did in 2007, despite the sharp increase in food and fuel prices. On the other hand, public consumption and investments in real terms have contracted in the first three quarters as a result of slow disbursement rates amidst political instability and slow project completion as raw material prices rose sharply. On the demand side, private consumption and investment declined notably in the last quarter, despite falling inflation during the second half of the year in line with lower oil prices. Both export and import expanded satisfactorily during the first three quarters. However, during the last quarter, export contracted following trading partners’ economic slowdown while import decelerated markedly in line with export and domestic demand conditions. Thailand’s real GDP is projected to grow by 0 to 1 percent next year. This will be the lowest growth Thailand has seen since 1998, when real GDP contracted.The major factor weighing down growth next year is the sharp slow down in the global economy, particularly the contraction of the economies that are Thailand’s major export markets – US, EU, and Japan.This will have a large negative impact on Thailand’s exports of both goods and services which has been the major source of income and the driver of the output growth in the past few years. The US dollar value of exports of goods is expected to expand by only 8 percent in 2009, compared to around 20 percent this year.
During the closure of the airports in Bangkok from November 26 to December 2nd the CDS rose and was on par with regional peers, while the stock market fell further below that of regional peers.The impact of the global financial crisis in Thailand has been started to be felt in the real sector, particularly that of exports.
A large share of loans in 2008 was for working capital as the cost of raw materials and fuel increased significantly in the first half of the year.Next year, loans will be more scrutinized for credit quality. Large corporations will increasingly turn to domestic borrowing as the cost of off-shore borrowing increases rapidly. Bank loans to large corporations will therefore to continue to expand, as their credit quality is generally high, but those to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) may not.
