Thai Military Bank: Floods to raise inflation by 5 pct, food price by 12%

Research Center of Thai Military Bank (TMB) predicted that if the current flooding carried on until the end of this year, inflation could rise by 5.1 percent while prices of fresh foods by 11.9 percent, local media reported on Wednesday. To make the forecast, TMB's research center compared this year's floods with the worst case in 1995 which flooding situation covered vast areas and continued for four months. Should this year's flooding have same degree with the 1995 one, gross domestic products (GDP) of the country and domestic consumption would plummet during the last two months, the report said. Thailand has faced with widespread and longstanding floods which were considered as one of the worst ones in decades since July 25. The latest death toll climbed up to 281 with over 2.3 million people across the country affected.