Emerging economies witnessed capital outflows since the Fed’s first signal for tapering off bond purchases in May (Chart 2). In this period, all financial assets have been re-priced on a global scale. As global economic activity remains weak, we expect uncertainties over global monetary policies to linger for some time. While the US economic recovery is yet to stabilize, financial volatilities and the recent budget battle have posed risks to the recovery by tightening financial conditions. Despite some positive signs from the Euro Area economies, both the high unemployment rate and problems in the credit transmission mechanism have caused the economic outlook to remain weak. The fact that global monetary policies depend on high frequency data releases as well as the course of economic recovery, and that those data and recovery indicators are volatile, cause the uncertainties about global monetary policies to persist. 1. Monetary policy and monetary conditions  Elevated uncertainties regarding global monetary policies since May led the CBRT to adopt a cautious monetary policy that took into account both inflation indicators and macro financial risks fueled by global uncertainties. Accordingly, we continued to implement additional monetary tightening to contain the negative effects of rising inflation on the pricing behavior. In August, to enhance the effectiveness of the additional monetary tightening, the Bank widened the interest rate corridor by raising the overnight lending rate from 7.25 percent to 7.75 percent. In addition, the effective liquidity management helped short-term rates to be realized close to the upper band of the corridor.

Opening Remarks Bangkok Sustainable Banking Forum 2018 Veerathai Santiprabhob, Governor of the Bank of Thailand Monday, 23 July 2018 Distinguished guests, Ladies and gentlemen, A very good morning to you all. I am delighted to welcome all of you to the Bank of Thailand for our very first Bangkok Sustainable Banking Forum. This forum aims to enhance greater awareness of sustainability practice in finance by bringing together leaders in the area of sustainability, showcasing best practices and efforts taken by participants from the financial sector, and identifying areas we can improve. This event is a part of a series of conferences organized throughout this year to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of the Bank of Thailand. Ladies and gentlemen, In 1987 the United Nations first defined sustainability or sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs1.” Since then, this concept has served as a guiding principle for various long-term global development agendas. Yet, the principal ideas of sustainability, especially of moderation, responsibility and maintaining long-term focus, hardly takes the center stage in popular media, most notably in the economic and financial headlines—where we often focus our narratives on shortterm indicators, like GDP growth, shareholders’ earnings, stock prices, or bonus paychecks. Whatever it takes today to maximize these short-term indicators is believed to be the best course of action. We often forget that our short-sighted actions also dictate and impact the path for our long-term development and well-being.