Thailand's economy could take as long as two years to return to pre-pandemic output, says World Bank economist Arvind Nair. "We expect a two-year recovery to return to normal economic output, but not necessarily growth." The World Bank estimates 8.3 million workers in Thailand have been affected by the crisis and the middle class has shrunk from 50.6% of all households to 38.4% in the first half of 2020. According to World Bank economist Francesca Lamanna, countries with strong social assistance programmes and social registries were more easily able to scale up public assistance during the pandemic. "Countries also need to develop a stable financing scheme for social protection to sustain and finance all these programmes needed at the moment."

Source: Bangkok Post July 15, 2020 22:41 UTC