Bloomberg column names Thailand top emerging market

A pair of prominent investment strategists at Bloomberg business news has named Thailand the top emerging market for 2021 and said the Kingdom is likely to outperform expectations.

A report published in December 2020 by Bloomberg investment strategist Simon Flint and co-authored by Michelle Jamrisko studied a total of 17 emerging markets and forecast their potential for 2021 based on 11 indicators of economic and financial performance.

The study concluded that the top five developing markets that could beat expectations are Thailand, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan and Malaysia in that order.

Thailand achieved the top ranking because of its strong foreign exchange reserves and high potential for portfolio inflows. The Kingdom has built up and guarded its foreign reserves jealously after its experience in the late 1990s. At that time, a misguided attempt to defend the value of the national currency against speculators led the central bank to squander the foreign reserves.

Thailand is in the midst of a national infrastructure upgrade that is open to foreign investment and should prove a magnet for funds. The Kingdom also had the second largest number of initial public offerings in Asia last year.

“Developing-nation assets are headed for a back-to-back winning year, thanks to unprecedented monetary and fiscal stimulus deployed to fight the pandemic,” wrote Bloomberg chief emerging markets economist, Ziad Daoud.

“The depth of the pandemic recession and speed of recovery from it differs widely across emerging markets. Countries that manage to contain the outbreak, introduce a large stimulus, have low exposure to the hardest-hit sectors and aren’t reliant on foreign capital will fare better,” he added.

Photo courtesy of https://www.boi.go.th/index.php?page=thailand_advantages