Moreover, the allowed holding period of foreign currency deposits was extended from 3 to 6 months. The important lesson here is that we cannot push away globalization. Instead, we must learn to cope with and understand it well enough to reap maximum benefit from such an open environment. At the same time, we must reinforce our own immunity system, for example, by strengthening and broadening the domestic sector and by having good early warning indicators so that large capital fluctuations, should they occur, will not put a strain on the economy and impede our growth process. Appropriate policy mix regarding interest rate, exchange rate, and capital account liberalization thus remains an important challenge for the central bank. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope I have done my part today in sharing with you my assessment of the economy. My key point is that the economy is now doing better in terms of both the growth prospects and macroeconomic stability, and has the potential to continue to do well in the next year as the global economic environment improves. This important turnaround has come about through a combination of hard work, luck, and appropriate supportive policies, not to mention the progress that has been made on economic restructuring and reforms since the crisis. But most important perhaps has been the commitment, the spirit, and the confidence of our private sector that have helped steer the Thai economy through one of her most difficult periods.
London’s position has developed gradually and the statistics rarely separate the group of wholesale financial markets and supporting legal, accounting and other services that make London special from a broader group including retail banking and insurance and business services. But there is some evidence that all three factors are at work. The story seems clearest with the specific factors of production. The cost of commercial property in London, for example, has grown rapidly. According to Jones Lang Lasalle Research, in the City average capital values are over $ per sq.m, above both Paris and New York. And the costs in the West End, the main home of the new hedge fund industry, are almost twice as high. There is no doubt that the success of London’s financial centre is helping to fuel demand for office space from Canary Wharf to Mayfair. And of course it is not just commercial property in London that has been booming. House price inflation in London has outstripped the rest of the UK (Chart 1), and in Kensington and Chelsea average house prices have risen by almost 40% since the start of 2005, compared with 20% for Greater London as a whole. ECA International published a survey comparing average monthly rents for a 70-square metre unfurnished flat in the largest cities and showed London over € 2,100, compared with New York around € 1,750 and Paris below € 1,500.