BIS Review 126/2010  7  Figure 5 GDP growh in selected regions and countries (1) (2) (annual change, percent)  Monetary policy rates in the world (3) (percent) 14  14  12  12  10  10  8  8  0  6  6  -5  -5  4  4  2  2  -10  -10  15  15  10  10  5  5  0  00  02  04  06  América Latina EE.UU. Japón  08  10  0  0  02  04  06  08  10  Developed economies (4) Emerging economies (5) Chile  Asia ex Japón Zona Euro  (1) Regions are weighted by PPP as in WEO, April 2010. (2) Dots show growth forecasts for 2010 and 2011 respectively included in the baseline scenario of September 2010's Report. (3) Solid lines describe simple-averaged reference rates of each group of countries. Dots show averaged responses from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg during August 2010. These reflect expectations for September 2010, December 2010, March 2011 and June 2011. (4) Includes Canada, the Eurozone, Japan, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.K. and the U.S.. (5) Includes Brazil, Colombia, China, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Mexico, Peru, Poland, South Africa, South Korea and Turkey. Source: Central Bank of Chile based on statistics institutes of each country, Bloomberg and IMF.
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.