No need for Thailand to cut rates as fiscal stimulus drives growth: central bank gov

[BANGKOK] Thailand has no need to cut interest rates to counter the impact of China's slowdown on the Thai economy as fiscal stimulus is driving slow but steady growth, the country's central bank governor said on Tuesday.

Southeast Asia's second-largest economy has been hit hard as exports contract and domestic demand weak at a time household debt levels are high. China is one Thailand's top trade partners and any deterioration in what is already the slowest growth rate there for 25 years could curb the exports on which the Thai economy depends.

"We don't see any need to change the current monetary policy framework that we have," Bank of Thailand Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob, who began a five-year term in October, told Reuters in an interview.

"We see growth picking up although slowly and gradually." Veerathai stuck to the central bank's forecast of 3.5 per cent economic growth for the year, although he said any further fall in global oil prices might lead to a revision.

REUTERS