Posted on 07 May 2009
Signs of recovery in the industrial sector are emerging as capacity utilisation has been improving steadily, with more gains expected over the rest of the year, says the Office of Industrial Economics (OIE).
Arthit Wuthikaro, the OIE director-general, forecast a capacity utilisation rate of 56.6% in the second quarter compared with 50.86% in the first quarter.
"Improving utilisation is the result of increased export orders in some industries such as electronics parts, processed and canned food products, packaging and petrochemical products linked to packaging items," he said.
"Second-quarter capacity utilisation should be even higher but it was dragged down by local political factors."
Improving export demand comes mainly from
"The improvements in some export markets will fuel the recovery, resulting in the recovery of GDP in the industrial sector next year," he said.
The OIE expects to see industrial GDP this year contract by 8-10% from 2008, when it grew by 3.9% from the year before. In the first quarter, industrial GDP contracted by -14.9% and the second-quarter forecast is -11.9%.
The index for the electronics industry in the first quarter fell -40.04% year-on-year, but should improve to -18.41% in the second. Automobiles and parts remain a big concern as there have been no improvements seen recently.
