BIG MANUFACTURERS FIRST TO BENEFIT FROM RECOVERY

       The industrial sector and large businesses are benefiting from the recovering economy, while other sectors and small and medium-sized enterprises are still suffering due to lower efficiency and liquidity as well as falling crop prices.
       The latest survey by the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce (UTCC) shows that most businessmen foresee their companies in positive territory in the current quarter and throughout next year.
       However, the businesses that are reaping better income growth now are in the manufacturing sector and are large-scale companies.
       "Manufacturing and large firms with higher efficiency and strong financial liquidity back-up have been able to adjust themselves with the recovery in growth faster than other sectors," Thanavath Phonvichai, director of the university's Economic and Forecasting Centre, said yesterday.
       Profit, sales and production costs in other sectors - notably farming, trading, services and SMEs - are still low, as they have lower efficiency and liquidity.
       Yajai Chuwicha, head of the chamber' Business Poll, said most sectors still foresaw low consumer purchasing power, rising oil prices, lack of financial liquidity and lower business efficiency as their main obstacles during a period of slight economic recovery.
       In the UTCC survey of 810 business respondents, 47.8 per cent said their turnover in the current quarter was unchanged, 32 per cent said they had a lower return, while 20.2 per cent said their revenue was increasing.
       However, most industrial respondents and those from large companies said their income had risen since the middle of the year. Incomes in the farming sector have not increased as yet, while most respondents from other sectors said their revenue was unchanged.
       Higher incomes in the industrial sector and in large firms resulted from greater purchasing power, as well as from high efficiency in management, marketing and production.
       Saowanee Thairungroj, UTCC vice president for the Research Division, said higher production and raw-material costs, rising oil prices, financial liquidity, logistics problems and an unstable exchange rated as the main negative factors affecting business operations.
       An unstable domestic political situation and weak consumer purchasing power were also cited as affecting the country's growth.
       She said enterprises were increasingly concerned about rising oil prices in the final quarter of the year.
       Survey respondents expect the diesel price to rise to Bt29.50 a litre in the next quarter, whereas the maximum retail price they say they can cope with is Bt27. The exchange rate is expected to be Bt34.50 against the US dollar, but the preferred rate for enterprises is 35.50.