Bangkok city center on January 2.
Photographer: Jack Taylor / AFP / Getty Images
Photographer: Jack Taylor / AFP / Getty Images
Thailand’s economic conditions are expected to deteriorate again this year as the nation struggles with a resurgence of coronavirus, according to a national survey.
About 52.2% of respondents in the study conducted by the Bangkok National Institute for Development Management predict that the economy will be even worse in 2021 than last year, while 14.6% anticipate 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 on December 24-25. Only 28.8% expect it to be less severe, the institute said in a statement issued on Sunday. The respondents were Thai decrepit 18 and over.
Thailand is going to impose a new one a set of business and assembly restrictions in 28 of Monday’s hardest-hit provinces to stop the latest outbreak 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 closed businesses, including pubs, bars, gyms and other entertainment venues, in addition to closing schools by the end of the month.
At its December policy meeting, the central bank said gross domestic product probably decreased by 6.6% in 2020 due to the impact of the pandemic. At the same meeting, it reduced its forecast for this year to an increase of 3.2%, from a previous estimate of 3.6%.
Thailand reported 315 new cases of the virus on Sunday, 294 of which were transmitted locally, according to the Covid-19 Situation Management Center. The total number of cases in the nation rose to 7,694, with the capital Bangkok and Samut Sakhon and Rayong provinces being the main hotspots.
Samut Sakhon reported 541 new cases in the past 24 hours, mostly among migrant workers, the Kaohoon newspaper reported, citing the province’s public relations office on Sunday. Its latest issue was released after national numbers were announced earlier in the day.
Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha has refrained from re-imposing a national blockade, saying the nation may contain the recent outbreak. However, the rise in infections will delay plans to reopen the country for tourism, with a national state of emergency remaining in place to allow authorities to impose restrictions quickly if deemed necessary.
“Strong medicine”
Authorities are not pushing for uniform restrictions at the national level as they try to minimize the impact on the community, a spokesman for the Covid-19 Situation Management Center, Taweesilp Witsanuyotin, said Sunday. He said provincial authorities would be allowed to impose “personalized measures” to counter the outbreak.
Even though we know we need strong drugs today, the strong drug has many side effects, Taweesilp said. “We learned our lessons from using strong doses everywhere. Those who suffer the most are normal people who try to live their lives. “
Thailand could face additional obstacles to reviving its economy from anti-government recurrence protests, according to the institute’s survey. While almost 77% of respondents said they expected the political situation to remain chaotic or worsen, 43.2% of participants predicted that pro-democracy protests would take place again this year.
(Updates with survey details in the third paragraph.)