BUSINESS NEWS:
UTCC reports recovery in local confidence index in 4 months
The latest consumer confidence survey found the index picked up for the first time in four months in July due to easing oil prices.
The University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce reported today July consumer confidence index rose for the first time in 4 months.
University’s Director of the Center for Economic and Business Forecasting, Thanawat Polvichai, said confidence index has increased from 70.8 in June to 71.8 last month mainly because of a continued fall in local retail fuel prices.
He added that the recently introduced state economic stimuli also helped improve consumer sentiment while an export surge in June also led to an improvement in the index.
In addition Thanawat commented that the Bank of Thailand's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) should keep its policy interest rate at 3.5% for the rest of this year after having raised the rate by 25 basis points on July 16. The MPC is due to meet again on August 27.
The center director went on to say that in case that local inflation does not ease as expected the MPC might then decide to increase its benchmark interest rate later but not by more than 0.25 point each time.
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Govt to spend THB80 bil in local healthcare system improvement
The government will spend 80 billion baht to improve the country’s healthcare system within the next four years.
Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the economy, Surapong Suebwonglee, said today the government would set aside 80 billion baht as an investment budget to systematically improve Thailand’s healthcare system.
Surapong also said that he has assigned related state agencies to conduct relevant studies which are due in two weeks to strategize the spending of this budget.
Initially the state-initiated health improvement plan would take 4 years from the year 2009 to 2012.
This amount is also a part of the 1.7-trillion-baht mega-project budget, Surapong said.
When asked about where the remainder of this budget would go the DPM said that all details should be obtained within one month.
He added that the sources of the funding would be from within the country, overseas and the government bond issuance.
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Fin Min confident Thai GDP to average 6% in 2008
The Finance Minister is certain that Thai GDP growth rate would be at no less than 6% this year because of the many state stimulus measures.
Finance Minister, Surapong Suebwonglee, reiterated again there would be another set of state economic stimulus measures to be unveiled soon.
With many series of stimuli in place by Q4-08, Surapong is confident that the economic growth rate will not be less than 6% in 2008.
The Finance Minister today met with the Fiscal Policy Office the National Economic and Social Development Board and the Bank of Thailand to discuss local economic performance since the beginning of the year and its prospect during the next 4 months.
For the remainder of 2008, Surapong is hopeful that the overall situation will improve as the world oil price has been on a slide lately while the government is set to invest in the much-awaited mega-projects which would help increase both local and foreign investor confidence further.
He also assured that the state plan to invest big would not lead to serious financial burden for the country.
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BOI: “Total privileges application fall 5.92% on-year during Jan-Jul’08 period”
There have been few investors vying for the government’s investment privileges during the first seven months of 2008 when compared with last year.
The Board of Investment (BOI) reported today the total value of projects applied for the state investment incentives from January to July this year was almost 6% lower YoY.
The total worth of application submitted to BOI was 242 billion baht during the first seven months of 2008 compared with 257 billion baht a year ago.
In terms of the number of application, 749 projects have been recorded or 25 projects more than in 2007.
The latest report also stated that at the end of July, those from the Electronics and Electrical sector were the biggest group that sought after BOI help followed by the Chemical, Plastic and Paper and the Metal Processing sector.
Meanwhile Japanese investors have been the number-one applicants for state investment privileges with those from Europe and Singapore trailing in the second and the third position.
In terms of approval, 665 projects with a total worth of 262 billion baht have received the BOI privileges to date.
