A view of Bangkok, the capital city of Thailand (Source: oneyoungworld.com) Bangkok (VNA) - The Thai Commerce Ministry forecasts the country's exports will grow 4 percent to over 238 billion USD in 2021.
Pimchanok Vonkorpon, director-general of the ministry’s Trade Policy and Strategy Office said next year's growth would be driven largely by food, products related to working from home, home appliances, healthcare, the recovering global economy and the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine.
"Despite a second wave of infections reported by many trading partners, their lockdown measures are not as tight as during the first wave of the outbreak to curb the impact on overall economies," said Pimchanok. "A successful vaccine would build up confidence in the world's economic prospects from the second quarter."
Earlier, the Commerce Ministry reported the country's customs-cleared exports fetched 18.9 billion USD in November, down 3.65 percent from the same month of last year, with imports shrinking 0.99 percent to 18.9 billion USD, resulting in a trade surplus of 52.6 million USD.
For the first 11 months of 2020, Thai exports contracted 6.92 percent to 211 billion USD while imports dropped 13.7 percent to 188 billion USD, resulting in a trade surplus of 23.5 billion USD.
The ministry forecast Thai exports for the entire year of 2020 are set to shrink by 7 percent to 238 billion USD./.
VNA
