Thailand: El Niño poses a significant growth risk for 2027

研报英文原文证据摘录

Thailand: El Niño poses a significant growth risk for 2027

Global Markets Research

23 July 2026Asia Insights

Economics - Asia ex-Japan

Research AnalystsThailand: El Niño poses a significant growth risk

Asia Economicsfor 2027

Lattakit Lapudomkarn - NSL

… even though the impact for the rest of 2026 is likely to be manageable lattakit.lapudomkarn@nomura.com

+65 6433 6676

Euben Paracuelles - NSL

• El Niño poses significant risks to Thailand's agriculture-dependent economy, but high euben.paracuelles@nomura.com

reservoir levels and minimal main-crop exposure should limit the impact in 2026. +65 6433 6956

• For 2027, our scenario analysis shows a severe El Niño could cut our GDP growth

forecast of 2.0% by 0.3pp, but add only 0.1pp to our CPI inflation forecast of 0.8%.

• With El Niño hurting the growth outlook more than raising inflation risks, we reiterate

our forecast that the BOT will leave its policy rate unchanged at 1.0% through 2026-27.

Likely limited impact in 2026 but a bigger concern for 2027

Global climate agencies have flagged the potential for a “super El Niño” in 2026-27,

raising concerns about agricultural disruption across Asia (see Asia'sElNiñoplaybook:

Eightlessonsfrom25yearsofshocks, 10 Jul 2026). El Niño events are characterized by

warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern Pacific. Past El

Niño episodes show that Thailand’s monthly agricultural production declined by as much

as 10% during the strong El Niño periods (Figure 1). The main impact on agricultural

production is on rice output (Figure 2), which accounts for approximately 12-15% of total

agriculture output. The share of the agriculture sector to Thai GDP is a relatively high

6.3%, and it also accounts for 28.3% of total employment.

Fig.