, creating the so - called “ two - speed economy. ” however, concerns over the economic recovery have lessened over the past few quarters, as the economy has shown signs of a more balanced growth. we begin to see that the growth in export sector started to spill over to other parts of the economy, particularly private consumption and private investment. according to our projection, private consumption was projected to continue its solid expansion, as the underpinning factors such as employment and consumer confidence continued to show signs of improvements. private investment continued to expand with additional supports from public investment projects as well as heightened overall confidence. in our latest forecast, the economy is projected to grow at 4. 4 percent this year and 4. 2 percent in 2019 — the strongest twoyear performance since 2008. nonetheless, in this multidimensional nature of financial and economic development, bounded by the tight - knitted inter - country financial linkages, a strong domestic economy alone may not be enough to safeguard itself from external shocks. thus, the best thing a country can do to protect itself is to build immunity and resilience for the economy. against external volatilities and volatile fund flows, our flexible exchange rate regime has served as the first line of defense, with foreign exchange interventions being used to calm disorderly markets. our international reserves are around 3. 2 times short - term external debt ( compared to only 0. 7 during the asian economic crisis in 1997 ). our current account surplus has been running in the positive for 4 years and is projected to be at 35. 4 billion usd for this year, or 7 percent of gdp. moreover, thai corporations and banks rely mostly on domestic funding and thus carry with them low currency mismatch. these factors provide us with particularly strong cushions and allow us to exercise our domestic monetary policy with autonomy. in conjunction with these buffers, a range of policy tools are also available to be deployed should the need arise, including macroprudential measures. in addition to building immunity against external volatilities, the bank of thailand also puts great emphasis on maintaining financial stability on the domestic front which is necessary for a sustainable growth. as mentioned earlier, the search - foryield behavior under the prolonged period of low interest rate environment poses vulnerabilities to financial stability. in response, the bank of thailand strives to mitigate impacts from these underpricing of risk behaviors. we continually monitor warning signs of the aforementioned risks and address them accordingly. last

also face with increased external debt liabilities measured in local currencies. moreover, according to the institute of international finance, approximately 2. 7 trillion us dollars of eme bonds and syndicated loans are due by the end of 2019, with approximately a third of that amount denominated in foreign currencies. weaker currencies and high correlation of emes ’ long - term bond yield to the us treasury yield could reduce the ability of eme firms to service debt and could undermine economic stability. we have already seen some eme countries with idiosyncratic factors such as argentina and turkey experiencing these pressures. the second source of risk is headlined almost daily in the news : the escalating trade protectionism and especially trade tension between the us and china. the back - andforth between the two countries and the unpredictability of the outcome have driven much of the macroeconomic as well as financial volatility in the past few months. up until now, the impact of the announced tariffs between the two countries on global trade has been limited since it takes time for the effect to be fully passed through. nonetheless, the full impact of the ongoing trade war is expected to come next year, and the series of trade disputes could be far from over. if further tariffs were carried out, supply chain and production networks across the region could be disrupted. while the trade volume would certainly be directly affected, perhaps the more serious casualty is private investment, which — as we have seen in our recent past — decline under uncertainty. to the extent that uncertainty brings about reduced investment, prolonged trade war will reduce the productive capacity for future growth and delay technological upgrading for firms. along with the growing trade disputes, the escalation of geopolitical risks — the third source of risk that we are facing — is one of the most pronounced trends of the past few years. in addition to long - standing issues that are awaiting resolution such as conflicts in the middle east, tensions in the korean peninsula, and brexit, new sources of potentially abiding fragility keep adding on to this list. the us - russia conflict, iran nuclear sanction, the militarization of the south china sea, and the increased cyber - attacks by both state - and nonstate - actors, are some of the issues that have emerged over the past few years. while heightening geopolitical risks have not led to a serious market correction or slowdown in global economic activities, persistent geopol