However, most recently, while the overall domestic activities remain weak, more positive signs on the real sector are emerging, especially in the monthly April data that show greater stabilization in the pace of contraction on a month-on-month basis, of exports, manufacturing output, capacity utilization, and private consumption, as well as a narrowing of the trade surplus. On the financial front, recent rally in equity prices is also positive. The rally, which is largely liquidity driven, is indicative of two developments that are taking place in our financial markets at this time: first, the resurgence of capital inflows linked to the return of risk appetite globally; and second, the search for yield by Thai savers, on account of the low nominal deposit rates, which sees savings shifting away from bank deposits to other instruments. Hence, the latest round of deposit rates increase by banks can be seen as a response to this development. On liquidity, at this time, liquidity in the Thai banking system remains ample. Loan-to-deposit ratio, including B/E, was at 83.9 percent in April. Bank credit continues to grow on a year-onyear basis, but fell by 2.7 percent since December last year. The decline largely reflects the fall in corporate loan demand on account of the slowing economy. Consumer credit and mortgage loans, on the other hand, continue to register positive growth, and this has provided an important underpinning for consumer spending thus far.
There is clearly the expected positive relationship with population, but the ratio varies hugely: a central bank on the highest of the three parallel lines has ten times the staff per million population as one on the lowest line. The extent of this dispersion is more apparent in Figure 5 which shows the number of staff per million population for the large countries. With only around 3,500 people - down by more than 50% over the last twenty years and still falling fast - the Bank of England itself is one of the most modestly staffed in relation to its population. In contrast to the significant results found by Fry et al. from their sample of developing countries, regression analysis on the industrial country data shows only weak evidence of small economies of scale. Nor did other variables tested on industrial countries yield any significant results. As for the transition economies, their staff numbers generally conform to those in industrial countries with similar populations. The exception is the Bank of Russia, whose staff looks abnormally large. Some of these central banks are still growing as they seek to carry out their new functions; but one or two, like the National Bank of Hungary, are already reviewing what they are doing and how they do it, and are slimming down. By the end of this year, they expect to have 40% fewer staff than two years ago.