BoT Publishes Edited Minutes From June Monetary Policy Meeting

The Bank of Thailand has published the edited minutes from its Monetary Policy Committee's meeting held on June 8, when policymakers decided to keep the key policy rate unchanged at 0.50%.

• "Thailand’s trading partner economies were projected to slow down," mainly due to "tighter financial condition in the US and the EU as central banks accelerated the pace of policy normalization to tackle rising inflation." In addition, "global inflation was expected to increase, as energy and commodity prices would remain elevated for longer than expected."
• "The Thai economy would continue to recover, expanding by 3.3 percent in 2022 and 4.2 percent in 2023" and "in 2022 could expand faster than previously expected owing to stronger domestic demand and the recovery of tourism sector."
• "Headline inflation was expected to stay above the target range for the full year 2022," but "would gradually decrease and return to the target range in 2023 in the baseline scenario as energy prices were not expected to rise further and cost pass-through would gradually diminish. Medium-term inflation expectations have not significantly increased and were anchored to the target range of 1-3 percent despite a slight increase in short-term inflation expectations."
• "The Committee deemed that a very accommodative monetary policy would be less needed going forward. Four members voted to maintain the policy rate in this meeting to ensure that the recovery would continue to gain traction as anticipated. (...) Three members viewed view that policy normalization is warranted in this meeting given the increased upside risks to both growth and inflation."
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