spike in energy prices linked to ongoing instability<\/a> in the Middle East.<\/p>\nThe TPSO, led by director Nantapong Chiralerspong, reports that the rising cost of fuel has triggered a \u201csupply shock\u201d across the food industry. Logistics costs for transporting produce from farms to urban centres have become unsustainable for many vendors.<\/p>\n
Furthermore, a severe heatwave has decimated vegetable crops, leading to market shortages and rapid price increases. Many street food and restaurant operators, who had previously absorbed rising costs, are now forced to pass them on to the public.<\/p>\n
A survey of 1,396 items across seven popular categories \u2013 including basil fried rice, chicken rice and noodles \u2013 found that nearly 10 per cent of items had immediate price adjustments.<\/p>\n
The southern region has been hit the hardest, with some food prices skyrocketing by 25 per cent, followed by the north-east (15.18 per cent) and the Bangkok metropolitan region (14.87 per cent).<\/p>\n
The rapid jump in inflation has sparked concerns that Thailand may be entering a period of \u201cstagflation\u201d \u2013 a damaging economic cycle of stagnant growth and high inflation.<\/p>\n
With the TPSO forecasting May inflation to climb further to 3.06 per cent, the pressure on household purchasing power is intensifying.<\/p>\n
However, the TPSO has moved to downplay these fears.<\/p>\n
Mr Nantapong clarified that while the country is experiencing \u201clow growth and high inflation\u201d, it does not yet meet the formal criteria for stagflation, which requires high unemployment and a total halt in gross domestic product expansion.<\/p>\n
Despite this technical distinction, the reality for the average Thai citizen is a diminishing wallet.<\/p>\n
As the cost of essential meals continues to climb, economists warn that the inflationary pressure is likely to spread beyond single-dish meals to the wider food and beverage system, leaving consumers with few places to hide from the rising tide of expenses. THE NATION\/ASIA NEWS NETWORK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BANGKOK \u2013 Thai consumers are facing a sharp increase in their cost of living as popular \u201csingle-dish\u201d meals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[138,219,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-421977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}