the government acknowledges these problems and has implemented many initiatives. you may have heard of thailand ’ s efforts to promote digital economy, r & d, innovation, new s - curve as well as various investments in infrastructure projects, all of which are aimed at uplifting thailand ’ s potential growth. but, one area that, in my view, is less frequently discussed is the implication of several new laws on the future of thailand ’ s economic and business landscape. the discussion of these laws constitutes the second part of my talk. ladies and gentlemen, in general, there are three main goals that policymakers want to achieve. first, we want to attain a high level of economic growth to raise standard of living. second, the growth must be sustainable ; there is no point to achieving high growth only to find oneself in a crisis at a later stage. third, the foundation of growth must be based on good governance and provides economic opportunity for people across all segments of the society. social stability cannot be sustained with only selected few enjoying the benefits. having said all this, one necessary foundation in support of achieving these goals is to have a wellfunctioning legal framework that promotes governance, productivity, sustainability and equal opportunity. for thailand, there is much room to improve on our legal framework. in a fast changing world, specifically with technology and liberalization, laws can quickly become outdated, stalling business progress and creating high costs of compliance, especially for smes. at the same time, new risks may not be properly regulated as dynamic technological and social progress has created the needs for regulation in areas once not deemed necessary. therefore, it is the responsibility of the policymakers to continue to improve the legal framework to support their policies and goals. for these reasons, i want to highlight a set of laws – mainly laws relevant to businesses that will support and shape thailand ’ s future business landscape. some of the laws that i will discuss are already in effect ; some are being reviewed at the national legislative assembly ; and some are being considered at the council of the state after having been endorsed by the cabinet. while several of these laws can have wide ranging effects on thailand ’ s business landscape, for the ease of this talk, i will loosely categorize them into three groups, namely ( 1 ) laws that promote governance and improve the distribution of economic opportunity, ( 2 ) laws that support productivity enhancement, and ( 3 ) laws that strengthen macroeconomic stability. let me start by highlighting a few laws in the first

real house price in the u. s. increased by more than 40 percent between 2002 and 2006, while u. s. loan growth, particularly mortgage loans, accelerated during the same period. these signs were also present in east asia before the 1997 crisis. in the current crisis, the securitization boom and the easing of monetary policy in the us helped fund the loan growth, while in the case of the asian financial crisis, it was the large capital inflows in the form of direct borrowing that funded the credit boom. in both cases, however, poor underwriting standard by banks was an important common contributing factor. looking back, the asian financial crisis has been an important turning point for policymakers in the region, as the lessons learned from the crisis had led to many important policy reform initiatives, all of which aimed at strengthening the robustness and the risk management discipline of the domestic financial systems, and this brings me to my second point. in the case of thailand, after having restored financial stability in the early 2000s, financial reform became a top priority, with emphasis on instilling prudent regulations and strong risk management. we adopted a macro - prudential approach in the early 2000s, in recognition of the systemic linkages between the financial system and the increasingly opened macroeconomic conditions ; utilizing our natural institutional advantage as we continue to oversee both monetary policy and financial institutions supervision. hence, from 2003 to 2006, a series of macro - prudential measures were introduced, aiming at restraining then the rapid growth of credit, especially credit card loans and mortgage loans. the preventive measures that were introduced included placing limits on the loan - to - value ratio for luxury mortgage, raising minimum repayment requirements for credit cards and personal loans, and strengthening npl provisions by fair valuation standards of ias39. looking back, these measures have been useful in curtailing excessive leverage and household indebtedness, thus helping to maintain stability in our domestic financial system. risk - based supervision was a key driving force to strengthen risk management practices of our financial institutions. financial institutions and central bank laws have been overhauled to keep up with the increased complexity of the financial system. the new financial institutions business act, enacted last august, empowers the bank of thailand with the authority to regulate banks and non - banks under a consolidated supervision regime. furthermore, risk management and governance practices of financial institutions have also been strengthened. board of directors are now held accountable by law for setting the strategic and