BANGKOK: The government is looking into ways of reducing the impact of the United States-Iran conflict with regard to rising oil prices, said Energy Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong.
According to the Bangkok Post, state agencies were closely monitoring the situation as any escalation would have a direct impact on fuel prices.
“We will update the public on any development,” said Sontirat.
Tensions were expected to rise following the assassination of top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani last Friday.
Soleimani, 62, was killed in a US drone strike on Friday near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, shocking Iran.
The airstrike was ordered by US President Donald Trump, who said the general had been planning an “imminent” attack on US diplomats and the roughly 5,200 American troops stationed in Baghdad.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed “severe revenge” and declared three days of national mourning.
According to reports, Trump said “if the Iranians attacked again, the US will hit them harder than they have ever before”.
Trump said the choice of 52 targets represented the number of Americans held hostage at the US embassy in Teheran for more than a year starting in late 1979.
Pimchanok Vonkorpon, director-general of the Commerce Ministry’s trade policy and strategy office, said tensions between the US and Iran would cause fluctuations in currency and stock market values, leading to an immediate rise in gold and oil prices.
“The incident will have an impact on Thailand’s macro-economy,” she said, adding that oil prices soared by nearly four per cent last Friday and were likely to rise further unless the situation eased.
“This will prompt investors to hold on to low-risk assets, sending the price of gold into overdrive. It will negatively impact investors’ confidence and affect the global economy,” she added.
If Iran chose to close the Strait of Hormuz as a retaliatory measure, she said, logistics and subsequently oil prices would be severely affected as about 20 per cent of the world’s marine oil shipments passes through the area.
She said the global economy was expected to pick up some pace this year, due to a range of positive factors, which include the progress in China-US trade talks and economic stimulus measures undertaken by many central banks.
Panitan Wattanayagorn, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University and chairman of the security advisory committee for Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, said the US and Iran had been tangled in a conflict for a while, but the assassination of Soleimani had escalated the tensions.
“In the short term, the incident may lead to the two sides launching attacks against each other in the Middle East, or even Europe,” he said.
