The Commerce Ministry has yet to issue its revised forecast for full-year exports, but a ministry source says the outlook will be cut to a contraction of more than 2% from growth of 1.2%.
The ministry's Office of Trade Policy and Strategy is putting the final touches on the revised forecast, taking into account global economic conditions, oil and farm prices, foreign exchange risk and natural disasters.
The new figure will be made public today.
Commerce Minister Chatchai Sarikulya held a joint meeting of senior ministry officials yesterday to re-evaluate export performance after recently saying the ministry would have to cut its export forecast to zero growth or a marginal contraction, citing mounting pressure from myriad external factors such as the slow pace of the global recovery and low oil prices.
A Commerce Ministry source said after the joint meeting that it was highly likely the ministry would revise down its export forecast to more than a 2% contraction, as Thailand had faced a spate of problems since the year began.
The source specified the slower-than-expected global recovery and weakness in major trade partners such as the US, Europe, Japan and China as main factors.
Global oil prices remain low, down by 42.8% year-on-year in June, leading the export value of oil-related products such as finished oil, chemicals and plastic pellets to fall accordingly.
More importantly, the source said global farm prices had struggled to recover, with particular weakness in rubber and sugar.
The depreciating currencies of other manufacturing countries have taken a toll on Thailand's export competitiveness.
The Commerce Ministry last month reported Thai exports in June saw their biggest drop in three and a half years.
Shipments tumbled for a sixth straight month in June, falling by 7.87% year-on-year to a value of US$18.2 billion and yielding a first-half decline of 4.84% to $107 billion.
June's slump was the biggest monthly drop in exports since an 8.15% decline in December 2011.
Exports to the US fell by 0.1% year-on-year in June, but bigger declines came in shipments to China (0.8%), Japan (4.2%) and Europe (7.1%).
Shipments of major industrial goods fell by 7.7% due mainly to lower exports of automobiles and auto parts, finished oil, chemicals, plastic pellets and gold, while agribusiness goods shipments fell by 4.1%, driven by lower exports of rice, fresh and frozen seafood and sugar.
Imports slipped 0.21% year-on-year to $18 billion, with the six-month figure down by 7.91% to $103 billion.