Chief among these are supply bottlenecks such as a shortage of labour and public infrastructure, eroding competitiveness and productivity, and corruption. If not properly addressed, these could restrain the country’s growth potential in the medium term. The good news is that ongoing developments in Thailand are constructive. The current reform agenda holds promises for moving the country forward. The National Reform Committee, along with other task forces, has been founded to push forward muchneeded measures. (Slide 4) The Bank of Thailand is currently involved in the reform of stateowned enterprises, as this sector includes 8 State-Owned Financial Institutions (SFIs), whose asset size accounts for approximately a quarter of total assets in the Thai banking system. Starting from this year, we at the Bank of Thailand are appointed to be a “regulator” for such financial institutions, whilst the Ministry of Finance remains a “policy-maker” and an “owner”. This is one of the reform attempts to clearly separate the roles among those involved, in order to avoid potential conflict of interests and to ensure that SFIs are subject to a proper supervision akin to that of commercial banks. (Slide 5) While the reform efforts are welcome developments, to what extent reform plans will be put into action remains to be seen. One of the main challenges will be keeping the reform momentum going, as certain reforms may take years to complete. I think of sustainable reforms as running a marathon. You have to keep going steadily, slowly but surely.
Foreign participation in the Thai bond market decreased from a peak of 13 percent to the current level of around 10 percent of total outstanding public sector bond. The strong local institutional investor base was able to pick up from where foreigners left. Despite foreigners exiting the Thai bond market, total portfolio outflows last year (2014) amounted to a mere 1 percent of our international reserves. A flexible exchange rate, a relatively balanced external position and a modest external exposure, altogether acting as the first line of defence, contributed to the success. The Bank of Thailand is also equipped with comprehensive policy tools, along with ample international reserves, that can be used as a backstop to deal with disruptive capital flows and to  1  Examples of anti-corruption measures are 1) the Construction Sector Transparency Initiative (CosT) which promotes transparency in state enterprise projects and 2) Integrity Pacts which oversee purchase plans of government and state enterprise projects. Among the big projects already implemented are 1) Suvarnabhumi Airport Phase II 2) the Blue Line metro extension, and 3) Bangkok NGV bus purchase plan. 2  Total corporate debt / total corporate equity. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  safeguard financial stability. In fact, these are our multiple lines of defence available at our disposal. Ladies and gentlemen, We, should not be under the illusion, however, that good fundamentals can be taken for granted. In fact, the slowdown of economic growth in the recent years pinpoints to structural problems, holding back the economy.