stimulus from the hurricane relief that the congress has provided. however, despite the additional support to construction from hurricane - related repair and rebuilding, residential construction overall appears likely to cool a bit this year. the most recent indicators suggest that demand and home - price inflation have begun to moderate. with respect to inflation, although forecasting energy prices is risky, i should note that the futures market suggests that crude oil prices will move up a bit further in coming months before flattening out at $ 70 per barrel. if so, the drag on real income and spending from rising energy costs should diminish over time, as should the risk of additional energy cost pressure on underlying, or " core, " inflation. the general contour of economic activity that most forecasters are expecting, in which they see little change in resource utilization over the year, should be consistent with relatively stable core inflation. as i noted earlier, the unemployment rate is now at a five - year low of 4 - 3 / 4 percent. more important, it and other indicators of resource utilization - - such as the industrial capacity utilization rate - - are now at levels at which, in the past, little or no economic slack remained. at this point, we have seen few signs of upward pressure on labor compensation or core inflation. although we have experienced run - ups in prices of commodities, such as building supplies, that are more sensitive to changes in supply and demand conditions and in prices of energy - intensive commodities and services, the pass - through to core inflation appears to have been limited. important in that regard is the fact that longer - run inflation expectations have been well anchored, as is apparent in the stability of the five - to - ten - year inflation expectations of households in the michigan src survey and in the reading implicit in treasuryinflation - protected securities. the observations i've just shared illustrate the evolving economic forces that the federal open market committee ( fomc ) will consider as it makes monetary policy decisions over the remainder of the year. the fomc has raised the target federal funds rate 25 basis points at each of the past fifteen meetings over roughly two years. during much of that time, we described our actions as " removing accommodation " at a " measured pace. " at our march meeting, we indicated that some additional tightening may be necessary to keep the risks to the attainment of both sustainable economic growth and price stability roughly in balance. thus, the future path for the target federal funds rate will

in the environment where the public expects us to keep inflation within the target range. this makes us extremely conscious of every policy decision we make, which in turn allows us to avoid potentially costly policy mistakes. but perhaps the biggest change is on the credibility front. the way we conduct policy and our track record have helped us to regain any credibility we may have lost following the unsuccessful defense of the baht. public confidence in the bank enables us to anchor private - sector expectations about future inflation, which in turn reinforces the effect of our policy. yet despite all the good things inflation targeting has brought us, it is not a panacea. in other words, there are limits to inflation targeting. an apparent example here is development of asset prices. also, past successes do not guarantee future success. the economic environment we live in today is inherently dynamic and continuously evolving. we therefore need to be aware of both old and new challenges to inflation targeting as a monetary policy framework. some observers have cautioned that thailand ’ s inflation targeting regime has not been truly tested. in particular, there has not been an incident that gives rise to a severe tension between inflation stabilization and other objectives. for example, thailand has not experienced sharp exchange rate movements that come into conflict with the inflation objective. nor has the country been in a situation where persistent supply shocks lead to a significant slowdown of the economy amidst rising prices. operationally, there are also issues on how far we should push transparency. a few inflation targeting central banks now put forecasts of policy rates in their inflation reports. should thailand follow these practices? should we publish our mpc minutes as the fomc does? and should we announce the weight we put on output gap stabilization relative to inflation stabilization explicitly in the inflation report. in the past, we only mentioned these weights occasionally in passing. all these questions will sooner or later have to be tackled when our inflation - targeting regime gains maturity. ladies and gentlemen, the issues i have mentioned, as well as other challenges confronting the conduct of inflation targeting in emerging economies, are the main focus of this international symposium. we are honored to have with us five leading international researchers who will present their in - depth studies on some of these issues along with highly regarded discussants and panelists, not to mention the rest of the participants. the goal is to have an intellectual exchange of ideas and practical experiences on these important issues. to make the most out of the one - and - a - half - day event