thirachai phuvanatnaranubala : prospects for the thai economy speech by mr thirachai phuvanatnaranubala, deputy governor of the bank of thailand, at the german - thai chamber of commerce annual meeting, bangkok, 18 february 2003. * * * ambassador andreas von stechow, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to be here. my task today is to assure you, as one of our most important groups of foreign investors, that the thai economy is doing well. and for this year my task is quite easy. 2002 was a good year for the thai economy. despite much uncertainty in the global conditions, the thai economy made a robust recovery with stability, both on the internal and external fronts. you may recall that 2 years after the crisis, we started to have positive growth in 1999. gdp growth rates for 1999 and 2000 were strong at 4. 4 and 4. 6 %. but the year after that, in 2001, the global downturn adversely affected our export and made growth for 2001 dip to 1. 9 %. however, we recovered in 2002 when growth for the first three quarters climbed back up to 4. 9 %. for the final quarter, our initial estimate is just over 5 %, which would result in growth for 2002 the whole year at 5 % as well. this is a good performance in the midst of slow growth in many parts of the world. so what has caused this? first, there was an export recovery. export contracted as much as - 7 % in 2001. but it began to recover in april 2002. the latest figure for the whole year showed the annualised growth at almost 6 %. this was a dramatic turn around. it should be noted that the export recovery did not come entirely from our traditional markets, the us and europe. what we did see was that export to asia increased by over 7 %, somewhat higher than the average figure, with china absorbing a good 23 % more of thai goods this year compared to last. second, farm prices improved substantially. prices increased by 11 % boosting farm income by the same percentage for the whole year. both these factors helped improve our domestic consumption especially the sale of automobiles, motorcycles and construction. third, there was a strong recovery of other domestic demand. part of this was helped by the fiscal stimulation. in 2002 the budget deficit was at 3. 6 % of gdp. the other factor was the low interest rate environment

##it, and i have no doubt that the financial ties between london and the eu27 will remain strong – all of you will work to ensure that. close cooperation and a continued dialogue between the supervisory authorities will therefore be necessary, especially in times of crisis. i believe that the ssm and the pra should ensure information sharing and reciprocal 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches consultation while respecting independent supervisory decision making in each jurisdiction. now i ’ m sure you are wondering what a split of responsibilities would mean for uk branches of german ( and other ssm ) banks. the truth is : we can ’ t really tell just yet. we ’ ll have to wait for the final outcome of the negotiations between supervisory authorities. as i have said, these negotiations are already under way, and i am optimistic that they will be concluded soon. overall, our goal must be to achieve an adequate level of information sharing and joint supervisory work that does not lead to an increased workload for all parties involved. certainly, it will not be possible to develop a one - size - fits - all solution. the agreement on a split of responsibilities will need to leave room for accommodating specific cases. on the basis of the agreement, the pra plans to process applications for third country branches. 4 conclusion ladies and gentlemen, in the short run, the temporary permissions regime will mitigate the outcome of a possible hard brexit. nevertheless, thorough preparations by financial institutions are necessary. what happens in the long run depends on how brexit re - shapes the european financial system. where does all this leave us? in a way, you could simply say : uncertainty continues. but we should not forget that we have made quite some progress since the referendum in june 2016. at that time, brexit and its potential repercussions were essentially a black box. since then, both financial institutions and supervisors have put tremendous effort into better understanding and preparing for every possible outcome. and while some tasks are yet to be completed, most banks are well advanced in their preparations. 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches