Turning to Thailand, although the Thai banking sector is resilient and has been largely immune to the global financial turmoil, the impact of the crisis on Thailand has been quite hard owing to the economy’s high dependency on exports. As noted earlier, economic activities contracted sharply in the fourth quarter of last year and in the first quarter of this year, but the situation started to stabilize from the second quarter onward as economic activities began to show signs of improvement consistent with the developments observed elsewhere. Latest data for September point to continued improvements in economic activities, both in private consumption and investment, reflecting largely the benefits that domestic demand has gained from fiscal stimulus and supportive monetary policy. Exports in September contracted by 8.3 percent year on year, much lower than the contractions of 17.9 and 25.7 percents of the previous two months. On the output side, recovery in domestic demand has been met by stronger activities in production. Index of manufacturing production rose by 0.4 percent year on year in September, while the rate of capacity utilization in manufacturing increased to 64.7 percent. On economic and financial stability, economic stability remains intact in Thailand with strong external positions marked by continued current account surpluses, high level of international reserves, and a low and stable external debt. As for inflation, the emerging signs of recovery have not put pressure on domestic prices.
They are our investment returns from past economic restructuring and reforms that were put in place, and they are the qualities that we need to preserve and to further expand upon by continuing with economic restructuring and reform. I probably have used up my allotted time. I hope the talk has been useful, and again I want to thank the Rotary Club of Bangkok South for the invitation. Thank you.