Downtown Bangkok on January 2nd.
Photographer: Jack Taylor / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Jack Taylor / AFP / Getty Images
Thailand’s economic conditions are expected to deteriorate further this year as the nation struggles with a resurgence of the coronavirus, according to a national survey.
Approximately 52.2% of respondents in the study conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration, based in Bangkok, predict that the economy will be even worse in 2021 than last year, while 14 , 6% expect an improvement.
At the same time, the impact of Covid-19 could be even more deadly than in 2020, according to 48.1% of the 1,326 respondents in the December 24-25 survey. Only 28.8% expect it to be less serious, the institute said in a statement released on Sunday. Respondents were Thai aged 18 years and older.
Thailand will impose a new one set of restrictions on companies and meetings in 28 of its hardest-hit provinces as of Monday to curb the latest outbreak in an outbreak that has infected more than 3,000 people since mid-December. Bangkok, a city of more than 10 million people, has already closed businesses by the end of the month, including pubs, bars, gyms and other entertainment venues.
The central bank at the December policy meeting said gross domestic product it was likely to decline by 6.6% in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic. At the same meeting, it reduced its forecast for this year to a growth of 3.2%, from a previous estimate of 3.6%.
Thailand reported 315 new cases of the virus on Sunday, with 294 of them locally transmitted, according to the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration. The total number of cases in the nation amounted to 7,694, with the capital Bangkok and the main provinces of Samut Sakhon and Rayong.
Samut Sakhon reported 541 new cases in the past 24 hours, mostly among migrant workers, the Kaohoon newspaper reported, citing the province’s public relations office on Sunday. His latest count was published after the national numbers were released earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha has done just that he refrained from re-imposing a national closure, saying the nation may contain the recent outbreak. However, the rise in infections is likely to delay plans to reopen the country to tourism, with a statewide state-of-the-art emergency in place to allow authorities to impose restrictions quickly if deemed necessary.
“Strong medicine”
Authorities are not pushing for uniform restrictions across the country as they try to minimize the impact on the community, said MP Taweesilp Witsanuyotin, a spokesman for the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration, Taweesilp Witsanuyotin. Provincial authorities will be able to impose “tailor-made measures” to contain the outbreak, he said.
“While we know we need strong medicine today, strong medicine has many side effects,” Taweesilp said. “We have learned our lessons from using strong doses around the world before. Those who suffer the most are normal people who try to live their lives. “
Thailand may face additional hurdles to revive its economy from anti-government recurrence protests, according to the institute survey. While nearly 77% of respondents said they expected the political situation to remain chaotic or worsen, 43.2% of participants predicted that pro-democracy protests would take place again this year.
(Updates with survey details in the third paragraph.)