The government's planning unit, the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC), has been assigned to work closely with the Commerce Ministry to provide updates on the export sector so that exporters can find more markets to offset the impact of the trade row between the US and China.
Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said he was concerned about economic growth prospects in the first quarter because of state investment delays and slowing exports in the fourth quarter of last year.
According to an NESDC report, public investment contracted 0.1% year-on-year in the fourth quarter of 2018 after increasing 4.2% in the previous quarter. For the whole year, public investment rose 3.3% in after a 1.2% drop in 2017.
Exports in US dollar terms slowed from the previous quarter because of the deceleration of export prices. Export value in the fourth quarter of 2018 was US$62.5 billion (1.96 trillion baht), up 2.3%, easing from growth of 2.6% in the previous quarter.
For the whole of 2018, exports of goods grew 7.7%, down from 9.8% growth in the previous year.
On Friday, the Commerce Ministry reported that the country's customs-cleared exports fell 5.7% year-on-year in January to $18.9 billion, dragged by the global economic slowdown, the US-China trade war and the strong baht, marking a third straight monthly decline.
Exports in baht terms fell by 5.7% year-on-year last month to 616.104 billion baht.
Given the fourth-quarter government investment figures, Mr Somkid said he had ordered state agencies and state-owned agencies to expedite state enterprises' investment budget disbursement in the first quarter of 2019.
State enterprises managed to take out 378 billion baht from the 445-billion-baht investment budget for fiscal 2018, compared with 280 billion the previous fiscal year.
In terms of ratio, fiscal 2018 investment budget disbursement accounted for 85% of the target, while the preceding year's figure was 84%. State enterprises were ordered to draw down 395 billion baht worth of investment budget for fiscal 2019.
Wichayayuth Boonchit, deputy secretary-general of the NESDC, said the council's study found that Thailand has seen higher shipments of 5,000 items despite tariff hikes by the US.