BoT says GDP growth could fall short. The Bank of Thailand has turned more pessimistic on this year’s economic growth, saying risks to its 4.4% forecast are tilted to the downside. Economic growth this year could be dampened by weak exports and tourism. (Bangkok Post, 01/12/18)

Improving rice prices. Department of Foreign Trade says 11-month to date Thai rice exports value rose 11.25% in dollar terms, and 5.03% in baht terms, despite 3.58% dropped in volume. (Thairath, 06/12/18) Banks ask BoT to decide on teller service fee. Thai Bankers’ Association says the idea of charging service fee for doing transactions via tellers will be determined by the BoT. (Thai Post, 06/12/18)

Ex-Im Bank asks for Bt15bn equity injection. The bank is asking State Enterprise Policy Office to consider injecting capital as it moves to support Thai companies expanding to CLMV.  (Dailynews, 06/12/18)

Digital TV operator prices up on Tuesday as the market anticipates the NBTC to do something to help reduce costs for digital TV operators. This includes cancelation of the annual license fee and extension of the reduction in the network rental expense. (Kao Hoon, 6/12/18)

Household debt rose to 316K per family, up 5.8% over a year. The good news is that there are signs of a pick-up in loan for asset purchases and investment. The bad news is that households are turning more to loan sharks, as shown in the rise in the share of informal debt sources to 35.3% from 26.4%. (Khao Sod and Manager, 07/12/18)

Ministry of Energy aims to approve new PDP by December. The new Power Development Plan is going through public hearings and should be ready for EPPO approval in December, or next January at the latest. The new PDP could see additional output of 5GW, including private sector solar projects. (Manager, 07/12/18)

The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) will propose the ECO-electric vehicle (EV), an energy saving EV, project to the Ministry of Industry on December 7, 2018. The project will have more details about tax and investment privilege that FTI has studied with the Excise Department and Thailand Board of Investment. (Thun Hoon, 7/12/18)

Hoping to win Brexit support, PM May says world leaders ready for trade. Several world leaders are keen to strike trade deals with Britain once the country is out of the European Union, Prime Minister Theresa May will say on Monday, pressing the case for her Brexit deal before a fateful Dec. 11 vote in parliament. (Reuters, 03/12/18)

Qatar to leave OPEC and focus on gas as it takes swipe at Riyadh. Qatar said on Monday it was quitting OPEC from January to focus on its gas ambitions, taking a swipe at the group’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia and marring efforts to show unity before this week’s meeting of exporters to tackle an oil price slide. (Reuters, 03/12/18)

Huawei looms over trade outlook. Trump was not aware the U.S. had requested Huawei CFO’s extradition from Canada before he join Xi for dinner on Saturday. Still, the arrest now threatens to make the U.S.-China conflict much worse. (Bloomberg, 07/12/18)