BANGKOK: Thailand’s customs-cleared exports likely dropped for an 11th straight month in November, while industrial output fell again due to weak demand at home and abroad, a Reuters poll showed. According to the median forecast from the poll of 13 analysts, exports contracted 5.1 percent from a year earlier. October shipments dropped 8.11 percent.
Exports, equal to more than 60 percent of the economy, have long been sluggish due to weak global demand and structural problems at home, stalling the military government’s efforts to get Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy back on firm track.
November imports likely slipped 14.5 percent from a year earlier after October’s 18.21 percent tumble. Many imported materials are assembled into finished products and shipped out again.
Thailand’s manufacturing output index in November may have dropped 2.0 percent from a year earlier after October’s 4.17 percent fall, according to the Reuters poll of 10 analysts. That would be a third straight month of decline, based on a new methodology. Output has been weak for more than two years, and industrial goods account for over 75 percent of total exports.
