Monthly economic update: January 2023
Executive summary
Global Economy
- Global Manufacturing PMI expressed ongoing recession concerns over the globe, but with a lesser degree. In Europe, the survey outcomes showed a sign of less contraction. For services PMI, the survey results also indicated a less severe contraction in several nations.
- Global merchandise trade had softened during the last quarter of 2022 according to weakened global demands. Accordingly, productions were in a soft pace in several nations, especially a registered contractions in Japan and UK.
- Global Domestic demands were in a soft pace as represented by declining retail sales across nations, particularly a domestic sales contraction in Europe and UK. However, there were improvement in labor market in several nations. This was except for UK whose unemployment turned worse.
- Global inflations have been decelerating with a moderate declining degree going forward. This was due to a slower pace of normalization in supply chain pressure due to the ongoing issues in Taiwan and South Korea.
Domestic Economy
- In Nov22, Thai economic recovery maintained its traction due to prominent tourism, and that also helped private consumption sentiment. Several fundamental factors including employment, income, and consumer confidence continued to improve.
- Private investment declined slightly, mainly due to lower investment in machinery and equipment, whereas newly registered motor vehicles for investment improved.
- The value of merchandise exports dropped further for second consecutive month. This was due to the further decrease of major products e.g., refinery oil and chemical products.
- Foreign tourists in November increased consecutively to reach a new peak again. The major groups still came from East Asia. Russia and Europe tourists also returned due to the winter-season coming in northern continent.
- Headline inflation in Dec turned to accelerate due to energy price increased while core inflation remained mark over 3% level.
Financial Market
- Major central banks around the world hiked policy rate to curb rising inflation but with slower pace. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to deliver only 25-bps to 50-bps hike on 31 January – 1 February 2023 meeting.
- Investors went into long term bond tenor, for both US and Thai bond, due to recession concerns. Moreover, 10y-2y yield spread for US government bond dropped below zero, negative yield curve signal higher possibility of coming US economy recession. Meanwhile, 10y-2y yield spread for Thai government bond was still in positive territory.
- USDTHB largely appreciated in December, ending 34.55 level. It could be around 32.50-33.00 in January. Dollar would tend lower in short term on soft inflation and economic data as well as slower pace of Fed’s interest rate hikes.
