Damage to Thailand's manufacturing sector was likely to top 100 billion baht (3.3 billion dollars) from two and a half months of floods, Deputy Prime Minister Kittirat Na Ranong said Monday, dpa reported.
The damage could hurt foreign investor confidence, the government-run Thai News Agency reported him as saying.
Ayutthaya province, about 90 kilometres north of Bangkok, is one of the areas worst hit by the ongoing high water. The province's five industrial estates, which employ more than 200,000 workers, have flooded.
The floods have damaged more than 10,000 businesses in 15 provinces across the country, impacting more than 350,000 workers, the Labour Ministry said at the weekend.
Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra on Monday said he was still concerned there were vulnerable areas around north Bangkok and wanted them fortified.
Soldiers joined workers filling sandbags late Sunday to reinforce flood walls around an industrial estate in Pathum Thani, just north of the capital.
The estate, which houses 227 factories employing about 270,000 workers, was dry as of early Monday, the government news agency said.
The centre of Bangkok was predicted to stay dry because the bulk of the floodwaters had already passed through the city and into the Gulf of Thailand, about 20 kilometers to the south, a government agency said Sunday.
The National Flood Relief Centre said the huge volume of water that inundated Nakhon Sawan province, more than 200 kilometres north of Bangkok, had already passed down the Chao Phraya River and through the capital.
High tides through Tuesday are now the biggest concern because they are predicted to reach up the river to Bangkok at the same time as the biggest swell of water drains through the capital.
Kittirat, who is also the commerce minister, said the government has prepared an 80-billion-baht budget for a flood-prevention plan for the future.
...