ladies and gentlemen, we, should not be under the illusion, however, that good fundamentals can be taken for granted. in fact, the slowdown of economic growth in the recent years pinpoints to structural problems, holding back the economy. chief among these are supply bottlenecks such as a shortage of labour and public infrastructure, eroding competitiveness and productivity, and corruption. if not properly addressed, these could restrain the country ’ s growth potential in the medium term. the good news is that ongoing developments in thailand are constructive. the current reform agenda holds promises for moving the country forward. the national reform committee, along with other task forces, has been founded to push forward muchneeded measures. ( slide 4 ) the bank of thailand is currently involved in the reform of stateowned enterprises, as this sector includes 8 state - owned financial institutions ( sfis ), whose asset size accounts for approximately a quarter of total assets in the thai banking system. starting from this year, we at the bank of thailand are appointed to be a “ regulator ” for such financial institutions, whilst the ministry of finance remains a “ policy - maker ” and an “ owner ”. this is one of the reform attempts to clearly separate the roles among those involved, in order to avoid potential conflict of interests and to ensure that sfis are subject to a proper supervision akin to that of commercial banks. ( slide 5 ) while the reform efforts are welcome developments, to what extent reform plans will be put into action remains to be seen. one of the main challenges will be keeping the reform momentum going, as certain reforms may take years to complete. i think of sustainable reforms as running a marathon. you have to keep going steadily, slowly but surely. it ’ s not sprinting as fast as you can for 100 meters until the finish line. if you told me today to run a full marathon tomorrow, i could not make it. but, if you gave me time to prepare and get fit, i would be in the run. monetary policy let me now devote the last few minutes of my talk to update you about our monetary policy. throughout the last couple of years, the monetary policy committee has maintained an accommodative policy stance to support the economy. mindful of downside risks to growth, the committee carefully adjusted the degree of policy accommodation to ensure sufficient support to domestic demand and to shore up confidence. since may 2013, the policy rate was cut three times, as lower risks

merchandise exports to grow mere 1 % this year compared to 3 – 4 % expected by the market. demand growth from our trading partners is still slowly recovering, especially in the euro zone and japan. while the us economy is picking up its growth momentum, the risk of global growth and lower commodity prices has undermined many asian countries ’ exports including ours. with regard to exports of services, particularly the tourism sector, things are however somewhat brighter. with tentative signs of improvement, we project tourism to grow approximately 10 % compared to last year. third, there are critical assumptions in this projection, which hinges on government spending. as we all know, there are many uncertainties when dealing with an assumption of political nature. and, for this year in particular, our forecast team had a hard time making fiscal assumptions. on the one hand, the government is trying to accelerate budget disbursement and push through infrastructure projects. on the other hand, the country is bis central bankers ’ speeches undergoing structural reforms in many areas. some on - going reform processes, such as those related to fighting corruption 1, cannot help but delay government spending and investment. this is dynamism of the current reform period. some measures incur “ short - term pain ” but are necessary to create “ long - term gains ”. ( slide 2 ) underlying fundamentals and medium - term outlook ladies and gentlemen, despite headwinds and disappointing growth last year, the underlying fundamentals that have been attracting investors to thailand are still in place. the country ’ s overall economic stability remains sound against a backdrop of low unemployment, well - anchored inflation and a strong current account position. ( slide 3 ) thanks to the painful lessons of the crisis back in 1997 and the adjustment thereafter, the main sectors in the economy ( be it banks, corporate, households or government ) have also kept their leverage in check. the banking and corporate sector had undergone a dramatic change and now possesses a fairly healthy structure. npls of the banking sector dropped from 43 % during the crisis, to 2. 3 % in 2014, while debt - to - equity ratio in the corporate sector declined from 5. 1 in 1997 to 1. 3 in 2014. 2 as for the household sector, even though the level of debt had risen somewhat in the recent years, approximately 85 % of gdp last year, the decelerating growth provides us a relief. the transparent and prudent macroeconomic policy frameworks, used for both fiscal and monetary policy, also