• OPINION

  Financial crisis looms over Thailand

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 25/01/2024

  » The definition of an "economic crisis" is much debated in Thailand. This is because one of the requirements for enacting the emergency fiscal borrowing decree is that the economy must be in crisis.

• OPINION

  A tale of liquidity and (too much) debt

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 05/10/2023

  » Before starting the article, I want to convey a message to the government. The message is "Nothing is free; everything has to be paid for". Acting like Santa Claus is nice, but the government should be aware that every handout gift comes with a price tag.

• OPINION

  Why do I smell tom yum kung cooking?

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 10/08/2023

  » Readers who follow my bi-weekly economic column will have no doubt that the tom yum kung I am referring to is not a traditional Thai soup dish but the financial crisis of 1997.

• OPINION

  Is it all the Bank of Thailand's fault?

  News, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 12/09/2019

  » Currently, the two most pressing economic issues in Thailand are the appreciation of the baht and the high level of household debt.

• OPINION

  Handout difficult without BoT's help

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 18/04/2024

  » The purpose of this article is to educate the public about the real issue of the digital wallet scheme. The issue is not "HOW to get the 500 billion baht?" but "Is there 500 billion baht AVAILABLE to be borrowed?"

• OPINION

  Structural flaws impede our economy

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 21/03/2024

  » It took Japan 17 years to learn that a macroeconomic policy is for stabilising an economy, not stimulating growth. Due to low economic growth in the "lost decade" following the financial crisis in the autumn of 1997, the Bank of Japan adopted an unthinkable monetary policy of a negative interest rate in 2007 by pushing the short-term policy rate down to -0.1%.

• OPINION

  Time to stop making empty promises

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 07/03/2024

  » The Nikkei 225 Index just broke 40,000, surpassing the record high of 1989. The stellar stock market performance happened amid the fact that Japan's economy is officially in recession after two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth.

• OPINION

  BoT is absolutely right in holding rates

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 22/02/2024

  » The whole country -- the government, its economic agencies, private economic research houses, the private sector, and academics -- is accusing the Bank of Thailand (BoT) of being stubborn for refusing to lower interest rates to support the weak economy, aka, the economy in crisis.

• OPINION

  3.2% GDP growth 'pie in the sky'

  News, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 11/01/2024

  » This year must be my lucky year. One of the key points of this article is to underline the risk of financial crisis compared to 1997. But this time it would not come from bank failures, it would come from defaults on corporate bonds and commercial papers. The reasons are the low cash position of corporates from many years of weak economic performance and, most importantly, today's super-tight domestic liquidity to refinance matured bonds and papers. I am a little wary that readers may scorn such a bold opinion. However, out of the blue, my opinion was proven correct on Monday when Italian-Thai Development (ITD) announced the postponement of payments on its bonds due in 2024 to 2026 with a total value of 14.45 billion baht for two years.

• OPINION

  Will foreign investors still be wooed?

  Oped, Chartchai Parasuk, Published on 28/12/2023

  » This is my last article for 2023. Appropriately, I should write about the 2024 economic outlook but I have decided to postpone that to be the first article of 2024 as the analysis might be too unpleasant to digest right now. However, I will leave a "teaser" for readers to ponder over during the long holidays. As such, I am left with two choices: an article about informal debt -- I estimate outstanding debt to be over 400 billion baht and that it could have strong ties with grey money -- or an article about Thailand's ability to attract foreign investors, as our Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin travels all over the world to attract them. In the end, I opted for the latter.

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