trend of regional currencies, the baht ’ s recent movement has been largely influenced by external factors. any eminent signals of the fed ’ s initial hikes, or worse - than - expected data coming out of china, would prompt capital outflows from emerging markets, thereby weighing down their currency values. significant outflows could tighten financing conditions of domestic companies, in terms of both “ cost of funds ’ and “ availability of funds ”. such interplay of several risk factors is a challenge for business managers and investors alike. however, international investors, like many of you here, have been increasingly selective in their portfolio decision. they no longer treat emerging markets collectively as a single asset class, but have shown to differentiate between emerging markets. as such, even though emerging markets may generally move in the same direction, the actual adjustments across individual markets have been uneven. in this context, the degree of thai baht depreciation ranks within the middle of the regional movements – and our currency also closely tracks regional peers – while the level of volatility is moderate relative to peers. this owes much to thailand ’ s sound external position which provides cushions from volatility in the global financial markets, shielding the economy from any potential undesirable. an economy with strong buffers could be likened to a car with good suspension, which could smoothly go through a bumpy road of global financial markets volatility. in fact, on the external stability front, thailand performs well across several metrics. the current account surplus is expected to top 6 per cent of gdp this year, amounting to more than 26 billion usd. public debt stays rather stable at around 43 per cent of gdp. our international reserves stand at almost 3 times of short - term debt, among the highest in the region. the non - resident security holdings in our bond market is lower than 10 per cent, while those in the stock exchange of thailand account for around 30 per cent of market capitalization. such relatively low levels of non - resident participation, compared to our peers, suggest limited exposure to future capital flight. corporate sector ’ s foreign debt also accounts for just 13 per cent of total corporate debt as of mid - 2015. moreover, most external debt is concentrated among large corporations. these large firms tend to manage their exchange rate exposure well, by utilizing financial hedging instruments. careful risk management practice among thai corporates and financial institutions has made them much more resilient to volatile movements of the exchange

spillovers to the other parts of the economy, thereby securing a more broad - based recovery over time. however, export - oriented firms which currently spearhead the ongoing economic recovery are capital - intensive. they utilize more machinery rather than relying on labor. thus, positive spillovers to employment are less prevailing. this partly explains why the manufacturing employment growth has been rather moderate despite strong export growth and pickup in the manufacturing production index. furthermore, having a high level of household debt, especially during the debt deleveraging period, dampens this multiplier mechanism. this is because households have to use additional income to service their debt obligations rather than spending on goods and services. while there are signs of household debt being deleveraged, as reflected by a continuous decline in the ratio of household debt to gdp which fell from 79. 0 percent in 2016 to 77. 5 percent by the end of last year, debt burden remains high especially for lower - income households. ladies and gentlemen, i have been talking about factors behind the uneven economic performance of the last few years. going forward, the economic recovery is expected to be more broad - based and i want to highlight a few of these positive developments. first, export growth, our main growth driver, is becoming more broad - based as growth has now extended beyond larger players. in fact, export growth rate of smes 3 / 10 has become more or less on par with that of larger firms. domestic demand is also gaining traction with a steady growth in private consumption, and a pickup in private investment since the third quarter of last year especially from imports of capital goods. second, the government has directly stepped up various stimulus measures to support the rural economy. last year, the government introduced the supplementary budget with a particular focus on local infrastructure development, and the welfare card scheme which aimed to support daily expenditures among poorer households. this year, the new supplementary budget is allocated to vocational training as part of the second phase of the welfare card scheme, development of local community enterprises, as well as water resource development to improve productivity within the agricultural sector. this, together with the increase in the minimum wage in april, will support the rural economy and the well - being of the lower - income group. third, the multiplier effects should improve on the back of increasing public and private investment. while some of the government infrastructure projects were deferred from last year partly due to the new government procurement system. this year progress should have a better outlook since many projects