Downtown Bangkok on January 2.
Photographer: Jack Taylor / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Jack Taylor / AFP / Getty Images
According to a national survey, economic conditions in Thailand are set to deteriorate further this year as the country fights a resurgence of the coronavirus.
About 52.2% of respondents in the Bangkok-based National Institute of Development Administration survey predict the economy will be even worse than last year in 2021, while 14.6% expect an improvement.
At the same time, the impact of Covid-19 could be even more deadly than it was in 2020, according to 48.1% of the 1,326 respondents in the survey conducted December 24-25. Only 28.8% expect it to be less severe, the institute said in a statement released Sunday. The respondents were Thai deprecated 18 and above.
Thailand is going to impose a new one a series of restrictions on businesses and meetings in 28 of the hardest-hit counties on Monday to stop the latest flare-up of an outbreak that has infected more than 3,000 people since mid-December. Bangkok, a city of more than 10 million people, has already shut down businesses until the end of the month, including pubs, bars, gyms and other entertainment venues in addition to formwork schools.
The central bank said gross domestic product at its December policy meeting likely to shrink by 6.6% in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. At the same meeting, it lowered its forecast for this year to growth of 3.2%, from an earlier estimate of 3.6%.
Thailand reported 315 new virus cases on Sunday, 294 of which were locally transmitted, according to the Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration. The country’s total caseload rose to 7,694 with the capital Bangkok and the provinces of Samut Sakhon and Rayong being the main hot spots.
Samut Sakhon reported 541 new cases in the past 24 hours, mostly among migrant workers, Kaohoon newspaper reported, citing the province’s PR office on Sunday. The last count was released after the national numbers were announced earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha has aside from re-imposing a national lockdown, saying the nation can contain the recent outbreak. Still, the increase in infections is likely to delay plans to reopen the country to tourism, while the state of emergency remains to impose swift restrictions on authorities if deemed necessary.
‘Strong medicine’
The authorities are not pushing for national uniform restrictions, but are trying to minimize the impact on the community, Center for Covid-19 Situation Administration spokesman Taweesilp Witsanuyotin said during a briefing on Sunday. Provincial authorities are allowed to take “tailor-made measures” to contain the outbreak, he said.
“Even though we know that we need strong drugs these days, strong drugs have many side effects,” said Taweesilp. “We learned our lessons from using strong doses across the board before. The ones who suffer the most are normal people trying to live their lives. “
Thailand may face additional hurdles to revitalizing its economy after a repeat of anti-government protests, according to the institute’s research. While nearly 77% of respondents said they expected the political situation to remain chaotic or get worse, 43.2% of participants predicted that pro-democracy protests will take place again this year.
(Updates with details of research in third paragraph.)