It’s no surprise that 1Q15 numbers were weak, for the full year I have my doubts on Thailand being able to achieve the 3.4% prediction that comes out of the government, why? Exports are weak, Imports will pick up (should oil prices maintain these lvls), Consumption is weak (debt is too high), Government spending is still slow and thus far proven to be ineffectual.

From bberg:

Gross domestic product rose 0.3 percent in the three months through March from the previous quarter, the National Economic and Social Development Board said in Bangkok Monday. The median of 17 estimates in a Bloomberg survey was for a 0.6 percent contraction. GDP grew 3 percent from a year earlier, compared with a prediction of a 3.4 percent gain.

“The weaker baht should have a positive impact on exports from 2Q,” Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, secretary general of the NESDB, said in a briefing. “The second quarter should be better than the first as there are more positive factors. The government is accelerating spending and the weakening baht will also help boost exports.”

Source: Bloomberg

    • And yet we get daily stories of tourists getting murdered, beaten, and charged 8000 baht for crab…why does Thailand like to bite the hand that feeds them?

      • then again on the flipside you’ll hear the same stories in NYC, London, Russia, HK, China, Bali, Paris, anywhere in the world…every place in the world has some a$$holes.

  1. Yes, correct perspective is to be a new arrival/recent returnee. You expect to get ripped off, particularly at the airport, by taxis, etc. And you will be. Other areas of, um, touristic interest–same thing, by and large you’ll get treated worse elsewhere. The problem is: if you have been here before–and the further back you go, the more intense the reaction, you will be crushed. Down the line, tourism will no longer be the draw it once was, and you have seen Mr Heineke make the prescient diversifications to his portfolio accordingly. Not counting the junk food. If you have been coming here a long time and someone asks you what it was like “in the old days,” and you very foolishly respond, they will laugh in your face. That never existed.

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