Opposition Party Blames Thai Government for Economic Problems.

Byline: Chatrudee Theparat

Aug. 4--The economy will be more depressed than expected this year mainly because of the government's cumbersome method of budget disbursement, according to the opposition Democrat Party's economic team.

Ekamol Kiriwat, head of the team, said he was worried that the economy would not improve over the next six months.

The government acknowledged recently that the economy would grow only 2 percent to 2.5 percent this year and reach between 5 percent and 6 percent annually over the subsequent five years.

However, Mr Ekamol said the forecasts were optimistic.

With export growth and private investment slowing down in the first half, and likely to do so in the second, the government would not attain the figures it had projected, he said.

Worse, the government was slow in spending to stimulate the economy. Mr Ekamol said the government spent 65 percent of the approved budget in the first 10 months of the 2001 fiscal year starting last October, reflecting the government's failure to speed up the process after winning the January election.