The Bank Of Thailand has published the figures for thai exports in august. Let’s have a look, and see if the Green Shoots Theory is true.
-year on year (compared to august 2008), the total value (in THB) decreased by 16,78 %
[I remind my readers that it's better to look at the figures in THB, in local currency... Because this is the money that is really coming into businesses pockets. They sell in USD... but they get THB at the end of the process]
-what about a month on month comparison ? We have a 2,46 % increase in august, compared to july (448,6 billions THB versus 437,84 billions)
I can already hear you : “Green Shoots in sight !”
You know me : I can only answer : “wait a minute… Not so fast” 
Here is a comparison by country/zone, with values and % of difference…
Half (5,95 billions) of the difference… is coming from Iran. Great. +491 % ! C’est la fête. Champagne ! What a joke.
They probably managed to make a deal about rice. But : it’s a one time deal. In september : bye bye the almost 6 billions.
In accounting, they call that : “exceptional items”
And no, sorry to disappoint some of you, but there is no “seasonality” whatsoever… Here is the values per month, for Iran, since january 2007 ! It’s obvious : the 7 billions in august 2009 are totally abnormal.
(by the way, I was the first to spot anomalies in exports figures last february…)
The second half is coming of course from China. We all know the trick : massive intervention from the government, the banks are lending money like crazy (at the point of the gun)… people put this money into buildings… and stock market. Bubble 101. Not sustainable.
Australia excepted, you’ll notice that for most of the other trade partners of Thailand…. august was LOWER than july.
So Green Shoots or not ? I let you decide.
Meanwhile, sit back relax, and wait for the first figures about exports in september. The Commerce Ministry will publish those around october 20.
The Recovery Lovers are way too impatient… So impatient that they pretend to mold reality following their desires.
That’s their weakest point.
Any abnormal sign in the import numbers? About a year ago gold import jumped some 500% in a single month. What happen after that? Did it fall back to normal levels?
Bob
As in 2008 Thailand in 2009 probably arranged a plan to barter rice for oil with Iran.
This is the clearest example of how the triple financial, fuel and food crisis is reshaping global trade as countries struggle with high commodity prices and a lack of credit.
The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization has stated that such government-to-government bartering -a system of trade not used for decades-is likely to become more common as the private sector is finding it hard to access credit for food imports.
Thailand is the world’s largest rice exporter, controlling a third of the global market, while Iran is one of the top 10 importers. Last year Iran bought some 600,000 tons of rice from Thailand, but until recently this year it had bought only 60,000 tons as it had waited for prices to fall.
TC,
check it out (I think soon it’ll be taken off) – I stumbled upon this curious webpage. looks like some ppl in Thailand are dumping USD and buying quite a lot of gold (1000 MT !), huh ?
does anyone have a clue what is the “Bkk refinery” corp and owned by whom ? certainly whoever it is is pretty smart in getting rid of USD and investing into solid yellow metal.