A woman walks past a bench marked for social distancing in Lumpini Park, which was reopened after the government relaxed measures to combat the spread of COVID-19, in Bangkok on May 12, 2020. (AFP / Romeo Gacad)

Hoax circulates that Bank of Thailand has released fresh statistics on retirement

  • This article is more than one year old.
  • Published on May 29, 2020 at 10:20
  • 1 min read
  • By AFP Thailand

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Multiple posts shared tens of thousands of times on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and on multiple Thai websites claim the Bank of Thailand (BOT) has issued statistics on living expenses for retirees. The claim is false; a BOT spokesperson told AFP the central bank had not collected or released such data.

The post was published here on Facebook on March 8, 2019. It has been shared more than 11,000 times.

Screenshot of the misleading post.

Part of the Thai-language caption translates as: “Statistics data from the Bank of Thailand, so frightened after I read it…

“1. How do people in Thai live after retirement?

"1% - wealthy, millionaire

"4% - comfortable

"7% - enough to live by

"40% - need to rely on their children and retiring home

"48% - struggling, work hard even old

“2. Thai people’s living expenses / Meal price for 1 person

"1 day - 3 meals

"1 year - 3*365 = 1,095 meals

"30 years - 30*1,095 = 32,740 meals

“If you eat a meal of 30 Thai Baht, you will need to use = 985,500 THB / If you eat a meal of 50 Thai Baht, you will need to use = 1,642,500 THB”.

An identical post was also shared here and here on Facebook; here on Twitter; here on Instagram; and on this Thai-based website.

The claim is false. 

Sureeratana Luckananit, senior director of the BOT’s corporate communications department, told AFP via email on May 26, 2020, that the bank is not the source of the purported data.

She said: “The statistics posted on social media that claims to be from the Bank of Thailand is not correct, we have never conducted these statistics.”

A keyword search on the BOT website’s statistics section also found no results relating to living expenses in retirement.

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