How Thailand is tackling economic challenges

INVESTMENT TRUSTS

Orsen Karnburisudthi, manager on the Aberdeen New Thai investment trust, explains why Thailand's more positive economic figures do not automatically translate into high returns.

Thailand has had its fair share of big picture macro problems over the last few years, such as the military coup and problems resulting from the yellow and the red shirts – supporters and opponents of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra respectively. Politics has somewhat shrouded the overall economic outlook and, although the equity market has shown impressive resilience to this over recent years, more recently it has appeared to suffer under the weight of slowing economic growth. Many commentators have pointed towards increasing challenges lurking on the horizon. For some time ...