Thailand's Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva speaks during an interview at the Reuters FX award in Bangkok February 5, 2010. Abhisit said the economy should grow more than 4 percent this year and around 4.5 percent is achievable.
Credit: Reuters/Sukree Sukplang
via CAAI News Media
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Friday played down the threat of violence at upcoming protests seen as a showdown with the government but said the country was still divided and not ready for a popular vote.
Abhisit, who took office in December 2008 in the middle of an economic slump and a polarizing political crisis, has faced mounting pressure to dissolve parliament by anti-government protesters who say his rise to power was illegitimate.
Abhisit, who took office in December 2008 in the middle of an economic slump and a polarizing political crisis, has faced mounting pressure to dissolve parliament by anti-government protesters who say his rise to power was illegitimate.
Abhisit gave a strong vote of confidence in the economic recovery and said growth of around 4.5 percent this year was achievable, up from a previous estimate of 3.5 percent.
He told a Reuters forum that many "red shirt" supporters of exiled former premier Thaksin Shinawatra had genuine grievances but some were still bent on violence, so the climate was not right for parliamentary elections.
But he added that the threat of unrest that has unsettled financial markets in Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy had been exaggerated and rumors of an imminent military coup had been started to create an impression of chaos.
"On the whole, I think the picture painted by the media is probably more alarmist than the actual situation," he said. But the threat still remained and an election at this time would only deepen the crisis, he added.
NO ELECTION YET
"I don't believe an election will solve the crisis," he said. "The people engaged in all these political movements aren't really interested in elections as much as they are in other issues."
Analysts say it is unlikely Abhisit's party could win an election if one were called now, pointing to polls showing strong support for the opposition Puea Thai Party in the vote-rich, rural, northeastern region -- Thaksin's stronghold.
Abhisit, a charismatic Eton- and Oxford-educated economist, defied the odds in surviving a tumultuous first year in office and keeping a fractious coalition government together, at a time when Thailand suffered its first recession in 11 years.
He said improved capacity utilization, high export growth and record tourist arrivals in December had helped put the economy on course for stronger-than-expected recovery this year.
Government revenue in the first fiscal quarter from October to December 2009 was 15-16 percent above target.
He said that figure meant government stimulus borrowing might not be as high as expected and could be 200 billion baht ($6 billion) lower than the 800 billion baht ($24 billion) initially planned. He did not give a timeframe.
"Obviously we have no intention of pulling back stimulus prematurely. We will closely watch economic numbers and whether the private sector is ready to pick up the role of leading the economy onto a stronger recovery path," he said.
Abhisit also said a "road map" had been outlined toward lifting a court-imposed freeze on over $8 billion of projects at the country's biggest industrial estate over environmental and health breaches -- a case that has angered foreign investors.
He said he was confident the stalled projects at the Map Ta Phut industrial estate -- the world's eighth-largest petrochemical hub -- could be restarted in six to nine months.
With an assistant governor of the central bank in attendance, Abhisit refused to be drawn on when interest rates might go up, saying it was premature to say what would happen two or three quarters ahead.
"I don't want them to overreact," he said, with a smile.
(Additional reporting by Ambika Ahuja and Eric Burroughs; Editing by Alan Raybould)
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