According to Boonchai Charassangsomboon, Executive Director of Macroeconomic Policy Bureau of the Fiscal Policy Office, the European economic crisis has clearly affected the Thai export sector in July. The Fiscal Policy Office has, therefore, revised this year's export growth target down to only 5-6% , from the 12.8% projected earlier. The new target is set based on the assumption that export value each month is no less than 20 billion US dollars.
Mr Boonchai stated that July's export figure shrank by 4.5%, especially export to Europe, which contracted by 21.4% compared to June's. He elaborated that export to major trading partners such as China and Japan have also decreased.
Nonetheless, the Finance Ministry is adamant that its overall economic growth projection will be 5.7% per year, given domestic consumption and investments are still expanding.
