Worth noting is that, similarly to Thailand, many Asian economies have also capitalized on the opportunities to lessen monetary policy easing during the period of good economic performance since the latter part of 2010. The main objective has been to preserve fiscal and monetary policy space for potentially more difficult times ahead. For Thailand, I believe that our policy space remains appropriate. But, any higher public spending should be done with special care. At this juncture, the need to increase government consumption is less urgent and the fiscal focus should be put on public investment to expand our potential output. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  Therefore, the stimulus should be prioritized and carefully planned to leave some policy space for future needs. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to end my talk today by stressing that we now live in a different and difficult world. Current global risks from the slowdown in advanced economies have clearly heightened. Given good economic fundamentals, the Thai economy should be resilient enough to cope with such risks. I would like to urge investors not to swing between over pessimism and over-confidence and behave in a herd-like manner. Instead, all parties, public and private, should be cautious and prepared for the global risks in moving the country forward. It is my firm believe that protecting domestic purchasing power and let everyone have equal chance to benefit from the economic growth can strengthen the future well being of the Thai economy in a sustainable manner in years ahead.
Today, the proportion of Thai exports to non-G3 countries growing significantly higher, particularly to China, and ASEAN. In parallel, the share of G3 in Thai exports has declined from more than 50 percent in 1995 to less than one-third. Ladies and Gentlemen, Turning to the final part of my talk. As a central banker, our challenge is to constantly weigh the balance between risks from global slowdown on our economic growth versus rising domestic inflation pressure. Despite more downside risk on growth at present, the central bank assesses that the Thai economy is growing at around its potential and demand pressure could transmit readily to higher inflation outcome as well as expectations. To this end, the Monetary Policy Committee has been raising the policy rate to normalize monetary policy and bring the real policy rate closer to the positive range, yet remaining sufficiently accommodative to cushion the downside risk on growth. With many uncertainties ahead, it is wise to keep the inflation rate low to ensure that the economy remains competitive and to minimize pockets of instability, whether through excessive growth of bank credits, fiscal spending, or asset price bubbles. Low inflation helps keep the health of the economy in check and preserve the purchasing power or real income of all segments of the population. This is especially important for salary earners and the poor, whose real income could easily by eroded by higher inflation. Worse is to allow inflation expectation to run away because it will be costly to get expectation well anchored again.