The Finance Ministry will request a meeting with the NESDC after Q3 GDP grew just 1.2%, with officials questioning an unexplained 100-billion-baht fall in inventories that dragged growth into negative territory.

The nation's bricks-and-mortar retailers were undergoing a reckoning years before the pandemic led to shutdowns and a tanking economy, tipping more than a dozen major retailers into bankruptcy and prompting many others to thin their ranks.