With tourists set to return, Thailand is counting on speedy vaccine rollout
Bangkok
THE pace of Thailand's economic recovery this year will depend on the government's success in speeding up the rollout of Covid-19 vaccines - a crucial factor for the reopening of the tourism sector which accounts for 18 per cent of gross domestic product.
The pandemic has brought the tourism industry to its knees. The sector had provided more than US$60 billion in revenue from about 40 million foreign visitors in 2019.
On March 25, Thailand's central bank trimmed its 2021 growth forecast for South-east Asia's second-largest economy to 3 per cent, while also lowering its estimate for tourist arrivals to three million from last December's forecast of 5.5 million.
While Thailand has done a decent job in containing the spread of the virus - there have been fewer than 29,000 cases and just 94 deaths in total as at April 1 - the government has hit some speed bumps for the vaccine rollout, complicating the process by an ambitious attempt to produce the AstraZeneca locally at royally-owned Siam Bioscience.
Local production is scheduled to begin in June, with about 10 million doses per month, or 61 million by year-end.
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With a population of 69 million, this likely means that less than half the population will be inoculated this year.
To compensate for the slower-thanexpected delivery, the health ministry has ordered another two million doses of the China-made Sinovac vaccine, of which a million have already arrived and the rest due to be shipped in April.
It has also purchased an additional 117,000 doses of AstraZeneca for people over the age of 60. Sinovac has only been tested on those aged between 18 and 59.
There is talk of Bangkok purchasing another five million doses of AstraZeneca between now and June, but this has not yet been confirmed.
Thailand's Food and Drug Administration has only approved the import of Sinovac, AstraZeneca and, most recently, Johnson & Johnson vaccines, which in theory can now be imported by private players such as local hospitals and large corporations.
The private sector has become increasingly critical of the pokey inoculation process, especially the battered tourism industry that still employs more than four million people.
Thailand has been essentially starved of foreign tourist arrivals since April 2020, although its borders remain open to international arrivals who are willing to spend 14 days quarantined in a hotel, at their own expense. That looks set to change on July 1, when Phuket will waive its quarantine requirement for international tourists who have proof of vaccination and a recent negative Covid-19 test under the so-called "Phuket Tourism Sandbox" scheme.
This scheme was approved on March 26, by the Center for Economic Situation Administration, which has been setting economic policy during Covid-19.
The Thai government under Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has also announced a shorter quarantine for all visitors nationwide to 10 days (instead of 14) from April 1.
If all goes well, this could be further reduced to seven days for travellers with proof of vaccination landing in Phuket, Koh Samui, Chiang Mai and three other destinations.
The success of the Phuket sandbox, however, hinges on the distribution of some 933,000 vaccine doses to the island's 467,000 inhabitants before July, which analysts say is a rather tall order at the moment given Thailand's already limited vaccine supply.
"People living there must be fully vaccinated to ensure the safety of tourists," Thai Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told a meeting of the Federation of Thai Capital Market Organizations earlier this week.
This inoculation plan seems to be overly ambitious, according to some tourism executives.
"The foreign tourists don't care how many Thais have been vaccinated. They care about being able to enter Thailand without quarantine," said Luzi Matzig, a tourism industry veteran of 50 years. He is also chairman of Asian Trails Company, which specialises in European tours to Asia.
"It makes sense to start with Phuket, which is an island so they can control it," said Mr Matzig, who represents the Pacific Asia Travel Association as an adviser to the Thai Parliament on tourism issues.
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