BANGKOK – Bank of Thailand (BoT) gvernor Tarisa Watanagase gave a cold response recently to Finance Minister Suchart Thada-Thamrongvech's proposal to set a currency exchange target range to boost export growth, saying it is rather difficult to put such into practice.

She said the central bank is currently monitoring the baht to ensure it moves in parallel with other currencies in the region.

The weakening of the baht for the time being stems partly from the foreign capital outflow since foreign investors are remitting money to boost liquidity elsewhere, which had subsided considerably in the wake of the global financial crisis.

"We manage to supervise the baht to ensure it moves in the same direction with other regional currencies. A measure to make the baht move in the set range for the interest of the export growth is hard to implement because the world has become 'smaller' in terms of connected activities," she said.

Mrs. Tarisa said the baht's movement is at par with other currencies in the region and that it would not obstruct exports since the currency had moved at the same level with that of other rivals.

She said other measures should be implemented to bolster export expansion.

Included are the diversification of export destinations, reduction of production costs, enhancement of efficiency of products, promotion of tourism, acceleration of budget disbursement.

She viewed that Thailand's fiscal and monetary policies should be implemented concurrently for maximum benefit.

Regarding a proposed postponement of the adoption of criteria on supervision of capital funds under the Basel 2 rule to reduce costs in the financial sector, she said commercial banks have prepared for the new rule for a long time and are ready to apply it.