Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput: The Thai economy - the current state and the way forward

Speech by Dr Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput, Governor of the Bank of Thailand, at the Japanese Chamber of Commerce (JCC) dinner talk, Bangkok, 10 March 2025.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Distinguished JCC members and dear friends.

It's a great pleasure for me to be back here again. As noted, this is my fifth time coming to the JCC. Before I go on to the topic and talk about the current state and the way forward, I thought I'd do a little bit of looking back. I remember my first JCC talk back in March 2021 during COVID-19. It was a hybrid event, very cozy, with 12 people sitting and listening in, and about another 80 people online.

This year, it's a bit bittersweet. I always enjoy coming back here, but it will be my last JCC talk. It will be something that I will miss very much. So, thank you again very much for your kind welcome.

Part 1: Then (JCC March 2024) & Now (GDP Q4/2024 & 2024)

When I was here a year ago, I mentioned that I thought consumption was likely to continue to recover, expecting to see consumption growth of about 3%. As it turns out, consumption came in better than expected at 4.4%. We expected tourism to come back to about 34.5 million persons, but we closed last year with 35.5 million persons. Export value, which had a terrible year in 2023, was expected to rebound to about 2%, but it recovered nicely to 5.8%. The headline GDP number I gave you last year was expected to be in the range of 2.5 to 3%, and it came out at 2.5%. So, it was right at the very end, right at the very bottom of the range that we had expected.