[Bangkok 30th Reuters]-The central bank's governor, Weeratai Santhipurapop, revised the economic growth forecast for this year down to 2.8% on the 30th. He said he would review monetary policy.
The central bank revised its economic growth rate down this year from 3.3 percent to 2.8 percent last week. Last year's economic growth rate was 4.1%.
The governor told reporters that it was not yet a crisis and said, “If the economic situation differs from our forecast, we are ready to review monetary policy and use policy instruments.”
The central bank implemented an unexpected rate cut in August for the first time since 2015. Last week, the policy rate remained unchanged at 1.50%.
The central bank will review monetary policy on November 6th. Some analysts expect additional rate cuts this year.
The president also expressed concern about the high current account surplus and the appreciation of the baht due to the expansion of foreign direct investment.
The current account balance in January-July was a surplus of nearly $ 20 billion.
The president said that the baht speculation has hardly been seen since the introduction of measures to curb the inflow of speculative funds. He pointed out that stock and bond investments are net outflows. [nL4N24D1HQ]
Baht rose about 6.5% against the dollar this year. It is the highest rate of increase in Asian currencies.