BOT agrees with the amendment of Currency Act

Suchada Kirakul, the Bank of Thailand (BOT)'s assistant governor, said the central bank would follow the finance minister's policy of the Currency Act and reverse its idea of the central bank's investment channels to be those authorised by the existing act rather than the amended one.

Earlier, Finance Minister Chalongphob Sussangkarn had withdrawn the act from the NLA once in fearing that some of the NLA members would vote down the act and revise the act once before he proposed it to NLA recently.

This time, there were critics warning that the Section 16 of the act which allows the central bank to invest in more various financial institutions would be too risky to the international reserves.

According to the current draft, the central bank had tried to widen its investment channel into secured bonds with higher returns in order to keep value of international reserves. The currentlyauthorized government bonds issued by large countries, which the BOT is allowed by current act to invest, have offered low returns because of small supplies but high demands, she said.

The Nation

Anoma Srisukkasem