Center of 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 country battles a coronavirus revival, according to a national survey.
About 52.2% of respondents in the study conducted by the National Institute of Development Administration 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 survey conducted between 24 and 25 December. Only 28.8% expect it to be less serious, the institute said in a statement released on Sunday. The respondents were Thai elderly 18 and above.
Thailand is set to impose a new one imposes restrictions on businesses and gatherings in 28 of the worst-affected provinces from Monday to halt the latest boom in an outbreak that has infected more than 3,000 people since mid-December. Bangkok, a city with more than 10 million people, has already closed businesses including bars, pubs, gyms and other entertainment venues by the end of the month, except for closing schools.
The central bank said at its policy meeting in December that the gross domestic product probably shrank by 6.6% in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic. At the same meeting, he reduced his forecast for this year to a growth of 3.2%, from an earlier estimate of 3.6%.
Thailand on Sunday reported 315 new virus cases, of which 294 were transmitted locally, according to the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration. The country’s total business tax rose to 7,694, with the capital Bangkok and the provinces of Samut Sakhon and Rayong as the main hotspots.
Samut Sakhon has reported 541 new cases in the past 24 hours, mostly among migrant workers, the newspaper Kaohoon reported on Sunday. The latest version of it was released after the national numbers were announced earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha has refrains from drafting a national exclusion saying that the country may contain the recent outbreak. Yet the increase in infections is likely to delay plans to reopen the country to tourism, with a nationwide state of emergency in place so that authorities can quickly impose restrictions if deemed necessary.
‘Strong medicine’
Authorities are calling for nationwide uniform restrictions because they want to limit the impact on the community, said Taweesilp Witsanuyotin, spokesman for the Covid-19 Situation Center, during a briefing on Sunday. Provincial authorities will be allowed to draw up measures to curb the outbreak, he said.
“Although we know we need strong medicine today, strong medicine has many side effects,” Taweesilp said. ‘We learned our lessons from using strong doses in the past. Those who suffer the most are normal people who are trying to lead their lives. ”
Thailand may face additional barriers to revitalizing its economy as a result of government repetition argument according to the institute’s survey. While nearly 77% of respondents said they expected the political situation to remain chaotic or worse, 43.2% of participants predicted that pro-democracy protests would take place again this year.
(Updates with details of survey in third paragraph.)