BANGKOK: Thai factory output tumbled more than expected in April, the latest evidence that the country's key economic engines remain wobbly and the junta is struggling to move the economy forward.
With exports and domestic demand still weak, Southeast Asia's second-largest economy has not regained traction one year after the army took power to end months of political turmoil.
The Industry Ministry said on Thursday factory output in April fell 5.3 percent from a year earlier, the most for any month since June. A Reuters poll expected a 2 percent drop.
In March, annual output slipped a revised 1.7 percent after February's rise that ended a 22-month streak of declines.
Output data "remains a worrying sign", said Thammarat Kittisiripat, economist at TMB Analytics in Bangkok, adding that domestic spending power, investment and exports all remain weak.
Thammarat said output may improve "slightly" in the fourth quarter on more manufacturing exports to the US Every April, Thailand has its Songkran new-year holiday.
Siriruj Chulakaratana, a ministry official, told a briefing the April output fall "was due to fewer working days as some firms had more holidays than last year while the global economy has not recovered yet".
A decline in output was expected as exports slipped for a fourth straight month in April. Last month, industrial goods accounted for 78 percent of exports.
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