Economists agree the Bank of Thailand is unlikely to change its policy interest rate at next Wednesday's meeting.
The central bank's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) at its last meeting on March 12 cut the policy rate to 2% per year from 2.25%, with a narrow four-member majority arguing that a rate cut was warranted due to rising risks to economic growth from political turmoil.
The market consensus now is that the central bank is likely to take a wait-and-see approach, with no new developments coming in recent weeks that could justify further action, said Charl Kengchon, the managing director of Kasikorn Research Center.
He said issues that are likely to be of concern for the MPC include the negative trend of Thailand's credit rating and slight inflationary pressure.
The Japan Credit Rating Agency earlier this month cut Thailand's credit outlook to negative, saying the political turmoil could hurt the economy and a current account deficit may affect the country's foreign currency liquidity. Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings have also said the prolonged political deadlock could have a negative effect on the country's ratings.
Mr Charl said fund flows, which have already been affected as the US Federal Reserve continues tapering its monetary stimulus measures, could be further hit if international ratings agencies cut Thailand's rating.
Credit ratings are widely used in the financial markets to price credit. As sovereign ratings act as a ceiling for private issuers, a downgrade of the country's rating could result in higher international borrowing costs for Thai companies across the board.
Mr Charl said the MPC is expected to maintain a relaxed monetary policy stance in the near future as long as inflation remains relatively stable, capital outflows stay moderate and the country's credit ratings are not downgraded significantly.
He said household debt is an issue. Debt stood at 82.3% of gross domestic product and 9.79 billion baht at the end of last year, with overall household debt expected to rise further this year with the growth in retail lending.
Benjarong Suwankiri, a first vice-president of TMB Analytics, the research unit of TMB Bank, concurred that the MPC is expected to keep its policy interest rate unchanged as the overall economy has not changed significantly in recent months.
"The MPC is expected to maintain its current benchmark interest rate until the end of the year, but this depends on whether the political stalemate will be resolved soon and whether inflation edges up swiftly or not," he said.
Mr Benjarong said maintaining low interest rates for an excessive period could affect loan demand in a sluggish economy.
Santitarn Sathirathai, a Singapore-based economist at Credit Suisse Group AG, echoed the sentiments that the central bank was likely to do nothing at its next meeting.
"I think the hurdle for another rate cut is quite high after the reduction at the previous meeting. It seems they want to save some bullets for later in case growth really tumbles significantly below expectation, which is now quite low anyway," he said.
The Bank of Thailand cut its growth forecast for 2014 to 2.7% from 3%.
Mr Santitarn said keeping the real policy rate at a negative level could result in added problems for household debt as well as the spectre of an asset price bubble in case GDP growth rebounds at the end of this year or early 2015.
"This would make the economy highly vulnerable to a Fed rate hike, putting the baht and bond markets under pressure," he said.
A negative real interest rate means that interest rates are below inflation for a given period, generally encouraging borrowing and discouraging savings. The Commerce Ministry said inflation as measured by the consumer price index was 2.11% year-on-year last month, up from 1.96% in February. The consumer price index rose by 2% year-on-year in the first quarter.