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BANGKOK : Thailand’s factory output shrank slightly more than expected in July as sluggish global demand pinched exports, a ministry official said on Thursday.
The manufacturing production index (MPI) fell for a 10th straight month in July, down 4.43 per cent from a year earlier, compared with a forecast in a Reuters poll for a drop of 4.0 per cent for July.
Output has been impacted by a global economic slowdown, although domestic consumption has increased due to strong tourism, the industry ministry said.
“Domestic factors have largely signalled a slowdown,” Warawan Chitaroon, head of the ministry’s Office of Industrial Economics, told a press briefing.
“We expect that in the last quarter of this year, after October, there should be signs of improving in the short term. But in the big picture, it is still in a downtrend.”
In the January-July period, factory output contracted 4.54 per cent year-on-year. Industrial goods account for about 80 per cent of total exports, which have declined for 10 consecutive months.
The ministry on Thursday cut its 2023 MPI forecast to a fall of 2.8 per cent to 3.8 per cent, from a previous forecast of zero to 1 per cent growth.
Thailand’s customs-based exports contracted 6.2 per cent in July from a year earlier, compared with analysts expectation of a dip of 0.75 per cent. Exports had slumped 10.8 per cent from June, a 10th month of falls.
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