BANGKOK, Oct. 4 (Xinhua) -- Thailand's central bank governor said on Tuesday that the Southeast Asian country's economic recovery would remain intact despite the global economic volatility.
The Thai economy is expected to grow 3.3 percent year on year in 2022 and 3.8 percent in 2023, boosted by improving consumption and the tourism sector, the Bank of Thailand (BOT) Governor Sethaput Suthiwartnarueput told a business seminar.
The BOT expects the number of foreign tourist arrivals to reach 9.5 million this year and 21 million next year, compared with more than 400,000 in 2021 and a peak of nearly 40 million in 2019 before the pandemic.
Thailand welcomed 4.38 million tourists in the first eight months of the year, according to the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
Sethaput said the headline inflation growth would stand at 6.3 percent this year, before declining to 2.6 percent in 2023, within the annual target range of 1-3 percent.
Fueled by surging energy and food prices, Thailand's consumer price index, a main gauge of inflation, rose 7.86 percent year on year in August, the highest level since July 2008, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce. ■
