the banking sector through reduction of regulatory costs, enhanced legal and information infrastructure, and new competition introduced in orderly manner through phased deregulation and liberalization. fourth, the private sector has shown much resiliency and adaptability. for example, in response to the appreciation of the baht, exporters have made increasing uses of foreign exchange hedging instruments. at the same time, the increasingly diversified export market structure has provided thai exporters with cushions against the current slowdown in major advanced economies. as another example but perhaps more relevant to today ’ s audience, our listed companies no longer over - leverage their balance sheets, turning instead to equity and retained earnings as major sources of funds. fifth, thailand is among the world ’ s top places when it comes to the ease of starting and operating businesses. the recent report, “ doing business 2009, ” by the world bank upgraded thailand by six places. despite all the storms we have faced, we are now ranked at 13th place out of 181 countries ( 4th in asia after singapore, hong kong, and japan ). according to the report, thailand led other reformers in the region with improvements in four areas – registering property, protecting investors, paying taxes, and trading across borders. as investors, you may be interested to hear that one of the cited reform measures is amendments to the thai securities and exchange act to strengthen minority shareholder rights. ladies and gentlemen, provided that the current political deadlock is soon resolved and the new political equilibrium is reached, these fundamentals should provide a solid platform for thailand ’ s economic growth going forward. a recent study by the bank of thailand ’ s staff finds thailand ’ s potential gdp growth to be in the range of 5. 5 - 6. 1 % between 2008 and 2015. this may appear a far cry from the 1987 - 1996 period when the growth of the thai economy averaged 9. 5 %. however, everyone now realizes that the thai economy then was operating beyond its potential and therefore not sustainable. in contrast, our staff ’ s projection was based on a balanced growth path scenario used to characterize an economy in a steady state. there is however an important catch in the cited projection and that is the implicit assumption that the ratio of real gross investment to real gdp recovers from the current level of 22 % to 28 - 30 % by the end of the period. thus, things like mega - project investments are conceivably already included in the projection. the current political doldrums

from support measures that we instituted. in our context, the extension of repayment assistance programme has been accompanied by strengthened supervisory expectations on monitoring and stress testing of exposures under repayment assistance. further, we have also increased supervisory reporting requirements on such exposures and focused monitoring on more forward - looking indicators such as banks ’ internal mfrs 9 staging of exposures for purposes of macro - and micro - prudential surveillance to facilitate timely decision - making. 2. second, frequent engagements with banks have helped to provide timely and steady steer in ensuring their support of the recovery, without compromising resilience. for example, banks were not only expected to allocate resources and management attention to support repayment assistance efforts, but also effectively monitor the attendant risks arising from these efforts. as a result, we saw banks strengthening their own capacity to cope with the sharp increase in debt restructuring applications and support tailored repayment assistance plans for viable borrowers. in addition, notwithstanding the flexibilities granted under accounting standards, banks have maintained prudent asset classification and provisioning practices when assessing borrowers ’ creditworthiness. these include pre - emptive staging of loans to recognise higher credit risks among specific borrowers seeking repayment assistance, more conservative provisioning models, and increased application of management overlays to bolster model - determined provisions. 3. finally, the ready presence of effective institutional arrangements has also helped us be prepared for managing an influx of distressed borrowers. drawing on our experience from the asian financial crisis, malaysia has in place debt restructuring mechanisms for individuals and businesses alike. these include out - of - court platforms, namely the corporate debt restructuring committee ( cdrc ) for large corporates, small debt resolution scheme ( sdrs ) for smes, and credit counselling and debt management agency ( akpk ) for individuals. akpk, in particular, has become a staple name in malaysia due to its vast publicity campaign. although we have not observed any spikes in the number of cases admitted into cdrc, sdrs and akpk, in part due to banks ’ enhanced capacity to carry out debt restructuring, we resolved not to leave anything to chance. accordingly, the capacity of these out - of - court platforms was ramped up at the onset of crisis in anticipation of a potential deluge of distressed borrowers. to further enhance operational efficiency, the 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches sdrs was absorbed into akpk, making akp