Consumers’ confidence index continued to drop for the second month in a row to 74.9 points in June – the lowest in five months since February when the index stood at 75.8 points, said Ms Saowanee Thairungrote, rector of the Thai Chamber of Commerce University, on Thursday.

She noted that consumers’ confidence in all aspects had dropped, among them confidence in the economy, confidence in job opportunities, confidence in future income and confidence in political situation.

Confidence index in political situation for the month of June was registered at 81.4 points, representing continuing decline for the fifth month in a row and the lowest in 35 months since August 2014.

Consumers’ confidence in spending on buying new cars dropped to 80 points for the month of June from 81.3 points in May; on buying new houses dropped to 61.3 from 62.3; on tourism spending dropped to 65.7 points from 66.9 points and on business investments dropped to 43 points from 44.1 points – the lowest in seven months.

Mr Thanawat Pholvichai, director of the Economic and Business Forecast Centre, attributed the declining consumers’ confidence index to a drop in the prices of several key agricultural produces namely para rubber, pineapple, maize, tapioca and oil palm seeds in the past few months. These, he said, have affected the purchasing power of farmers throughout the country.

Also, he added that consumers were concerned with rising cost of living and with the uncertainty over global economic recovery.

Consumers? confidence index drops to the lowest point in five months - Thai PBS English News