第一季度GDP下半年风暴阶段前的平静

Restricted - External 13 Shreya Sodhani+65 6308 4525shreya.sodhani@barclays.comBarclays Bank, Singapore 5Thai Central Bank Tempers Rate Cut Bets as Trade Shocks Linger, Bloomberg, 14 May 2025growth. Service consumption was dragged likely by weak tourism as well as domesticmoderation, with the BoT noting that even high income groups - driving private consumption -could showsoftertrends. Finally, only merchandise exports were strong – driven in part byinventory drawdowns and re-routing, suggesting little sustainable value add. Continued exportfront-loading may also lead growth in Q2, as the 90-day pause will end in July. That said, Q2 willstill see UStariffsof 10% on imports from Thailand, a materially worse scenario than in Q1. Evenunder an optimistic "deal" case with the US, we do not thinktariffson Thailand will go below10%, which, while much lower than Liberation Day levels, will be much higher than pre-2 Aprilnumbers.We now lower our 2026 growth forecast to 2.4% from 2.5% earlier.BoT: Easing but not immediatelyWe continue to expect the Bank of Thailand to hold rates at its 25 June meeting, followingback-to-back cuts in February and April.The US-China trade discussions, the 10 July deadlinefor 2 April reciprocaltariffson the rest of the world and the pause on 145%tariffon China untilAugust, all suggest that the BoT will likely prefer to be cautious rather than run through itslimited ammunition quickly.We think that two members voting for a hold at the April meeting and one voting for a holdin Februaryindicates that the MPC is torn between the need to lower rates to counter cleardownside risks to growth and the need to preserve space to act once the fog of uncertaintyfades. Indeed, the BoT's press briefing following the release of the minutes from the Aprilmeeting tried to dampen expectations for more cuts, noting that its policy stance had alreadyhelped to limit future risks to some extent, while theeffectivenessof more easing would not behigh right now5. The bank projected H2 2025 as the "In the storm" phase when the impact ofhigher tradetariffswould become clearer. With the bankdelivering somewhat pre-emptive cutsin February and April, we think the BoT will wait for the impact oftariffsto be clearer, that is, H2,for its next cut.While Q1 growth was higher than expected, we do not think the bank's decision will likelydepend on this data. That said,Q1 data may be used as an additional reason by the bank towait to make the next rate cut. We expect one cut in August and another in Q4, with aterminal rate of 1.25% for this cycle.Details: Front-loading clearerDomestic demand excluding stocks added 2.9pp to growth, moderating from 3.9pp in Q4.Stocks and discrepancies subtracted 5.6pp from headline growth. Q1 growth was drivenby net exports, which added 5.8pp to growth, the highest since Q3 23. The net exportscontribution, as expected, was driven by a material increase in merchandise exports comparedwith Q3 23, which was high due to a sharp drop in imports (Figure 5). Data on merchandiseexports, coupled with inventories, is in line with our view that front-loading has been driving thestrength in exports, as witnessed in customs data. Good exports rose 13.8% y/y in Q1, increasingfrom Q4's 8.9%. Of this, export prices rose 0.8%, with volumes driving the outperformance.On the other hand, exports of services slowed materially (Q1: 7.0% y/y; Q4 24: 22.9%), asthe peak tourist season saw just a 1.9% y/y increase in arrivals,with high spending Chinesetourists down 24.2% y/y due to safety concerns. On a q/q sa basis, exports of servicescontracted1.3%, compared with a 14.4% q/q saincreasein Q1 24. Tourist arrivals continue to besoft,withApril arrivals down c.8% y/y. The NESDC today reduced its forecast of tourist arrivals to 37mn for2025, from 38mn previously.2 6Thailand: Sweat on the ceiling, 27 April 2025Within domestic demand, private consumption continues to be the driver given itsweight.As expected though, private consumption slowed, growing 2.6% y/y following Q4's3.4%.Private consumption rose 0.7% q/q sa, a touch higher than Q4 24. That said, privateconsumption continues to show weakness as seen in the past three quarters with householddebt overhang weighing. Q1 25 saw only a small stimulus program from the government – thesecond phase of the digital wallet – where ~4mn elderly people received THB10,000 each in theform of cash. Similar to Q4 24, we did not see a significant boost from the stimulus. Expendituresaw a broad-based deceleration, with a continued contraction in durable spending. Mostnotable, in our view, was the slowdown in consumption of services (Q1: 4.5% y/y; Q4 24: 6.4%),which had, until now, been the driver of private consumption expenditure. We thinkthe weaker than expected seasonal strength in tourism meant tourism-related income alsoweighed on consumption.Notably, the third phase of the digital wallet payment scheme,earlier planned to be made 'digitally' by the end of Q2, has now been put on