BANGKOK • Thailand is heading for a rare current account deficit this year with the country missing out on the billions of dollars earned from tourism, likely piling more pressure on the nation’s already battered currency.
South-east Asia’s second-largest economy may post a current account shortfall of US$10.3 billion (S$14 billion), or 2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), the first deficit since 2013, the National Economic and Development Council estimated.
Add to it a budget deficit seen topping 10 per cent of GDP for the 12 months to September, and it is a double blow for the baht, which was on a US manipulator watch list earlier this year.
The reversal of fortunes for Asia’s worst-performing major currency this year echoes the damage wreaked by the pandemic on Thailand’s economy.
With the nation reeling under the deadliest phase of the Covid-19 outbreak so far, the…
