Illustrative photo (Source: NKA) Bangkok (VNA) - Thailand's economic growth is likely to fall 7.8 percent, the biggest projected drop in the region, due to the impacts of COVID-19 on the tourism and service sectors, according to the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO).
AMRO's chief economist Hoe Ee Khor said that ASEANs economic growth could drop from 4.6 percent to minus 2.6 percent due to the impacts of the pandemic.
For ASEAN and its Plus Three partners of China, Japan and the Republic of Korea, the average growth could drop from 4.8 percent last year to 0 percent this year, he added.
Many countries are slipping into recession, depending on their economic structures and how successful they were in containing COVID-19, he said.
However, even with the most successful countries like Thailand, he continued, a negative growth of 7.8 percent is expected because its economy depends on tourism and services, which were hit very badly.
He noted that if ASEAN+3 quickly controlled the outbreak, they could grow by as much as 6 percent next year.
The Thai cabinet recently approved the Finance Ministry's proposal to borrow 1.5 billion USD from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to stimulate and rehabilitate the economy.
The borrowing scheme is part of the government's plan to issue a royal decree to borrow 1 trillion baht (32 billion USD) to revive the virus-hit economy./.
