These reform efforts might result in short term setback, but will certainly result in long term gains that promote sustainability and further enhance our competitiveness and business partnership with foreign partners. My talk this evening on Moving Thailand Towards a New Business and Financial Landscape will consist of three parts. First, I will briefly discuss Thailand’s current economic development. Second, I will elaborate on several important sets of recently enacted and upcoming laws that will upgrade Thailand’s business and financial landscape. Lastly, I will briefly discuss Bank of Thailand’s policies to support the new business and financial landscape. With regard to the current economic development, we expect the Thai economy to continue its recovery at the rate of around 3.2% in 2017 in spite of headwinds from the global economy and market volatility. Our fiscal stimulus programs and accommodative monetary policy continue to support the economy while export growth started to show sign of a more broad-based recovery. Nevertheless, there are challenges ahead, especially from a high level of household debt, which moderates consumption growth 1  while private investment remains subdued. In addition, the mourning period might have temporarily dampened some of the economic activities. We expect them to resume normalcy in the near future as the fundamental strengths of the Thai economy remain intact. Notably, our unemployment rate continues to dwell at a low level, while external stability is sound, with current account surplus expected to be around 7 percent of GDP this year, declining from 10% of GDP in 2016.
This phase focuses on making the financial sector even more competitive, more inclusive, with improved regional connectivity and greater sustainability. All of this is to serve the diverse needs from fast changing technology as well as to support rising trade, investment, and financial linkages in the region. This leads to two themes that I want to highlight, namely digitization and regionalization. 4 Figure as of November 2016. Source: PDMO and NESDB  6  First, digitization has geared many countries towards less costly cash transactions, which benefit everyone. The concept of “financial services anywhere, anytime” cannot be achieved without developing the necessary infrastructure that fosters more efficient as well as safer electronic transactions. Successful implementation will lower transaction costs for businesses as well as for the banking sector. The Bank of Thailand and the Ministry of Finance have initiated the National e-Payment Master Plan to support this digitization trend. The plan consists of five parts aiming at (1) promoting a fast payment system, or PromptPay, at very low costs; (2) advocating the widely use of electronic debit cards; (3) developing an efficient e-Tax system; (4) improving the Government e-Payment System to make all government’s payment especially welfare transfers electronic; and lastly, creating greater e-Payment literacy. It is important to note that the benefit of e-Payment extends beyond lowering transaction cost; it can also encourage payment transparency, which limits potential leakages and corruption in the payment process and provide e-commerce opportunities for SMEs.