SINGAPORE – Thailand will receive the first batch of vaccines next month and plans to start producing its own, according to its finance minister.
For starters, there will be about 100,000 doses, Arkhom Termpittayapaisith told CNBC’s Squawk Box Asia on Friday.
“The first vaccines will come to Thailand next month, the first batch,” he said, adding that Thai company Siam Bioscience will work with British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to develop vaccines that will make them available to both Thailand and and for other countries. .
He spoke to CNBC as part of covering the World Economic Forum’s Davos Agenda.
Thailand will begin launching the vaccine on February 14 and aims to inoculate 19 million people in the first phase, its prime minister said on Wednesday, according to a Reuters report.
The nation of Southeast Asia has provided 26 million doses from AstraZeneca to be produced by Siam Bioscience and 2 million doses from Sinovac in China, the report said. He also booked 35 million doses from AstraZeneca, he added.
The pandemic is hitting tourism
Termpittayapaisith also said that tourism is expected to recover by the end of the year, rather than in the middle of the year, as previously planned. The Thai economy relies heavily on tourism for growth, but foreign tourist arrivals stopped almost completely during the pandemic.
Tourism arrivals fell by 66% in the first six months of 2020 to 6.69 million, as countries around the world implemented roadblocks and restrictions due to the pandemic.
By comparison, Thailand recorded a record 39.8 million tourists in all of 2019, according to Reuters. Tourism spending accounted for about 11% of Thailand’s GDP that year, the report said.
Commuters wearing masks are waiting for a canal boat in Bangkok on March 2, 2020.
MLADEN ANTONOV | AFP | Getty Images
“We are also focusing on domestic consumption, so you can see that the economic package … (is) promoting more spending for the basic economy,” Termpittayapaisith said, adding that it is intended to offset declining revenues from international tourism.
Thailand on Thursday cut its economic growth forecasts for this year to 2.8% from 4.5% it projected earlier. The economy is expected to contract by 6.6% in 2020, according to its central bank.
The country reported a record 959 cases on Tuesday, the highest daily increase since early January as it intensified its tests, according to Reuters.
Thailand has one of the lowest reported cases in Southeast Asia. To date, it has reported 17,023 cases and 76 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.