Reuters
Car production in Thailand fell 20.11% in June from a year earlier due to tighter financing rules and high consumer debt, and full-year production is now expected to be lower than in 2023, the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) said on Thursday. In the January-June period, car production contracted 17.39% from a year earlier to 761,240 units, the federation said. "Stricter measures for credit approval from financial institutions, coupled with household debt that was nearing 90% of GDP, led to a higher rejection rate for auto loans," Surapong Paisitpattanapong, spokesman of the FTI's automotive industry division, told a news briefing.