ThaiEnquirer-Nov 16
Thailand’s economy is on the mend as the crucial tourism sector has revived much better than the expectations of the government with total number of tourists entering Thailand by the end of 2022 likely to reach as high as 12 million, a senior member of the Cabinet said. “Our number of foreign tourists coming into the country has risen and we are receiving right now almost 10 million which is beyond our target, our target was 8 million,” Arkhom Termpittayapaisith, the Minister of Finance said. Tourism, which accounts for nearly 15% of Thailand’s gross domestic product (GDP) had grinded to a halt over the past 2-years due to the implementation of restrictions after the outbreak of Covid-19 that spread across the world in 2020. It was only in July this year that Thailand lifted most, if not all, restrictions on arriving tourists and locals, that has helped push the tourism back on the radar screens. Thailand, which in 2019 had welcomed about 40 million tourists, had seen the numbers dwindle down to just over 400,000 during 2021, thus leaving the industries that relied heavily on the tourism revenue struggling to survive. “So, this is the beginning of a new era, after the Covid-19,” Akrhom said during a speech to open the new headquarters of Singaporean bank UOB in Thailand. He said that Thailand and the ASEAN countries were likely to buck the trend of global gloom and doom and that the hope was that ‘ASEAN could reverse’ the trend of global recession that is expected to impact the global economy in 2023. Read more at: https://www.thaienquirer.com/45879/thailand-set-to-welcome-12-million-tourists-by-year-end-with-economy-likely-to-buck-global-trend-of-recession-says-finmin-akrhom/
