Optimism up in Thailand, Malaysia

Optimism up in Thailand, Malaysia

Deutsche Press-Agentur, Singapore

Consumer confidence in Thailand and Malaysia hit historic highs during the fourth quarter of last year with optimism up for the first half of this year, a Mastercard survey showed on Tuesday.

Thailand emerged on top with a score of 95.1 on a 100-point index while Malaysia was only slightly behind at 93.5.

"The ability to mobilize and effectively deploy domestic resources to generate growth such as the case in Thailand and China, will be (the) hallmark of long term success in the Asia- Pacific in the years to come", said economic adviser Yuwa Hedrick-Wong.

The half-yearly survey focused on consumers from nine markets in Asia and Australasia.

A score above 50 indicated optimism over expectations for employment, the economy, regular income, the stock market and quality of life.

Below 50 signaled a pessimistic outlook.

Only Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines and Japan expressed pessimism for the first half of this year.

Singaporean consumers were far more upbeat, with confidence almost doubling from six months ago.

The city-state's score was 65.3, compared with 33.9 last June.

Wong noted it was the highest confidence reading since the end of 2000.

He forecast GDP growth of 5.8 per cent this year, with about 10,000 new jobs being created in the manufacturing and services sectors.

Wong cautioned a score of 65 "is not that robust a picture ... barely above neutral".