The Treasury Department accelerates the Thai economy in 2025, aiming for 3.5% growth.

While 2024 is expected to expand close to 3%, the slowdown in the industrial sector has led the Fiscal Policy Office (FPO) to lower its forecast for the Thai economy in 2024 to 2.5%, before expanding further to 3% in 2025 and potentially reaching 3.5% if there are sufficient supporting factors.

Mr. Pornchai Thiravet, Director of the Fiscal Policy Office, revealed that the Ministry of Finance has set a guideline to drive the Thai economy in 2025 through 5 main measures as follows:

1. Accelerate the disbursement of the 2025 budget to increase the proportion of investment disbursement from 75% to 80%, which will increase the money flowing into the economic system by 46.5 billion baht and help push the GDP up by another 0.11%.

2. Monitor the spending of the digital wallet project, focusing on circulating money from Phase 3 in the economic system to maximize benefits, which is expected to increase GDP by another 0.1%.

3. Promote the housing project for Thai people, which is expected to begin construction this year and inject 830 million baht into the economic system.

4. Promote tourism and the 33rd SEA Games. If we can attract another 500,000 tourists, it will increase GDP by approximately 0.15%.

5. Stimulate private sector investment, focusing on projects that have received investment promotion cards, such as Data Center and Cloud Region from leading technology companies. If there is no less than 75 billion baht in investment into the system, it will help increase GDP by another 0.19%.

4 factors supporting the economy in 2025

In addition to these measures, the Ministry of Finance also identified positive factors that will support the growth of the Thai economy, including:

1. Private consumption is expected to expand by 3.3% per year due to economic stimulus measures and continued growth in farmer income.

2. Exports are expected to expand by 4.4% in line with the recovery of the global economy and major trading partners.

3. Tourism: It is expected that the number of foreign tourists will increase to 38.5 million people, generating 1.83 trillion baht in tourism revenue.

4. Private sector investment is expected to expand by 2.7% per year, especially projects promoted by the BOI, which have the highest value of investment applications in the past 10 years.

Thailand’s economic stability remains strong

The Ministry of Finance expects headline inflation to be 0.9% per year, reflecting strong domestic demand expansion, while the current account balance is expected to be in surplus of $13 billion, or 2.4% of GDP, a positive sign for the stability of the Thai economy.

The Ministry of Finance, together with the Bank of Thailand (BOT) and the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB), are preparing to implement fiscal and financial measures to support Thailand’s economic growth in 2025 to meet its targets.

Data source: Bangkok Business