Executive summary: Economic review & outlook
Thai economy in 1Q21: Regarding the recurrent wave of COVID-19 infection in December 2020, the growth of economic activities decelerated from the expected pace of continuous rebound even with much less strict outbreak controlling measures compared to the enforced nationwide lockdown in the first outbreak last year. Private consumption accordingly contracted from the drags of weak employment situation, uncertain personal incomes and declining consumer confidence. Despite these fragile conditions, there were still supports from government's stimulus measures such as co-payment subsidy program and financial aid scheme, totally amounting to more than 2,000 billion baht, which helped sustain households' consumptions. Meanwhile, tourism sector overall remained in contraction due to the prolonging cross-border travel restriction and the decline in domestic tourism at the beginning of the year. With the rebounds of trading partners' economies particularly the United states and China, Thai merchandise export was, on the other hand, the only economic growth driver with a clear positive growth figure of export values excluding gold of 5% YoY in the first two months, registering a three consecutive- month of positive growth value. The leading categories of exported merchandises could be found in automobile, electrical appliances and electronics. About private investment, it rebounded in line with export recovery and an improved business sentiment after the second wave of infection being under control in February. Although with the lesser impact of new outbreak than the first wave in last year, Thai economy in the first quarter is estimated to continuously contract compared to the sameperiod of 2020 and to have negative momentum from previous quarter.