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Thai officials assessing whether to maintain a state of emergency, which business leaders
want lifted, deferred their decision on Friday, hours after two people were wounded in a shooting
at the site of anti-government protests. The protests aimed at bringing down Prime
Minister Yingluck Shinawatra have been going on for four months and are taking a toll on
the economy, with consumer confidence at a 12-year low.
Twenty-three people have been killed, most of them in shootings and grenade blasts, since
late November. The political uncertainty is unnerving consumers
and the violence is scaring tourists away from Bangkok. Lower spending is hitting automakers,
property firms and hotels in Southeast Asia's second-biggest economy.
Surapong Techruvichit, president of the Thai Hotels Association, said the occupancy rate
had plunged to 20 to 25 percent in Bangkok in January-February from 70 to 80 percent
in the same months last year. The end of the 60-day emergency, imposed in
Bangkok on January 22 in a bid to contain the unrest, would be a good start for getting
business back on its feet, he said. "If it's lifted, I think we can get back the
tourists within two weeks to a month," he told Reuters. "It won't be good just for the
hotel industry but for all business." But the head of the National Security Council
said no decision had been reached and the situation would be assessed next week.
"We'll let our military and police intelligence units consider whether the emergency decree
should continue or not," Paradorn Pattanathabutr told reporters.
The protests are the latest bout of nearly a decade of political conflict that has set
the Bangkok-based royalist establishment against the political machine of Yingluck's brother,
former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. Former telecoms tycoon Thaksin was ousted
in a 2006 coup and has been in self-imposed exile since 2008 to avoid a two-year jail
term for a graft conviction he says was politically motivated. He is widely seen as the power
behind Yingluck's government. The main opposition party boycotted a February
2 election and protesters disrupted polls Yingluck's ruling party looked set to win.
The protesters have lost faith in elections, which Thaksin's parties keep winning, and
want to change the political system to end his influence.