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BUSINESS OPERATION AND OPERATING RESULTS CORPORATE GOVERNANCE FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ENCLOSURES

Management Discussion and Analysis: MD&A

Management Discussion and Analysis

Economy and industrial estates

The global economy is projected to be fluctuated significantly resulting from various factors that impede an
improvement of the global economy; for instance, the pandemic of Covid-19 and limited capacity in fiscal and monetary
policies in many domains, especially in developing countries. Due to the economic damage, business sector has a high
tendency to default on debt repayment and lead to bankruptcy, which could further cause a spreading of drawback in
economy and world finance, explicitly in tourism industry where itineration is directly affected. In 2020, the economy
is revised up slightly comparing to previous projection. International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the global
economy will reduce from 4.4% to 3.5%, while World Bank predicted that it will be at 4.3%. despite differences in
global economic forecasts, the two organizations agree that China will be the sole victor among the major economic
countries that survive this unprecedented economic recession.

For 2021, there is a sign of growth in the economy by 4.5 – 5.5% from deduce 4.3% in the previous year, according
to World Bank’s projection, as many countries gradually loosen their restrictions after recovery of the pandemic of
Covid-19 that allow many economic activities to be able to resume. This promising change is aligned with economic
indicators from various sources, such as World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund (IMF) or Manufacturing
Purchasing Manager Index (PMI) that expected an increase in demand for raw materials, which shows an auspicious
inclination in global supply chain. However, despite the availability of Covid-19 vaccine and the promising change due to
various supporting factors, the recovery will still be in a slow pace since the global economy has not yet fully recovered
and unable to grow like before the Covid-19 outbreak. The world will also have to face a risk of long-term damage

due to the government’s effort to counter the downturn with fiscal and monetary policy support in many countries.
The easy monetary policy in respect of substantial reduction in interest rate is likely to widely affect the financial market
in case of severe default on debt repayment. At present, the government in many countries will also have to cope with
conflicts under economic, politic, and social aspects.

In 2020, Office of the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) projected that Thai economy
will be plummeted to the point reduce of 6.1%, lower than the first estimation that the Thai economy will shrink to 7.8%
due to tight restrictions to control the pandemic of Covid-19 domestically and internationally. For the tourism industry,

the growth is still expected to be sluggish due to the prolonged pandemic. Exportation is expected to be shrunk by
8.2% correspondent to the economic environment of our trading partners in ASEAN and middle east regions, while
the exportation to the main industrial countries and China is gradually recovering. Thailand still has a high risk of
financial instability as a result of a remarkable economic contraction that weaken financial position of both household
and business sectors that also increase the risk of the default on debt repayment. Monetary Policy Committee stated
that it will take around 2 years for the economy to be fully recovered. Thailand will still have to face a challenging
uncertainty situation. Moreover, the economic recovery tends to be differed between different group of economic

sectors and entrepreneur. The government should therefore consider to use a precise measure to cope with the current
situations that effectively encourage the improvement in general as well as integrating proper measures to be more
connected. The government should also have to support the fiscal and monetary policies under the cost of borrowing
in loan market in a low level with high liquidity in 2020 that could be continued to 2021.

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