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They suggest the government set up a high-level committee to centralise and coordinate risk management.

The recommendation was made at a seminar yesterday entitled "Fiscal Risks: Disclosure and Management", hosted by the Fiscal Policy Office, as the Finance Ministry was preparing to submit to Parliament a fiscal risk assessment with the annual budget bill for future debate.

Risks in Thailand are now low but could increase in the future, said Paolo Mauro, division chief of the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Kingdom's public debt is about 40 per cent of gross domestic product.

Sources of fiscal risks include macroeconomic shocks resulting from exchange-rate volatility or oil crises, he said. Risks also come from natural disasters, contingent liabilities, legal claims against governments and bail-outs of local governments, state-owned enterprises and banks, he said.

He said information about Thailand's fiscal situation was scattered throughout many agencies. To improve fiscal risk management, he suggests coordination among these agencies.

He also proposed the government centralise fiscal risk management by setting up an interagency committee consisting of representatives from several government agencies.

He also said there were gaps in information about off-budget spending, particularly quasi-fiscal activities of state-owned enterprises and state-owned banks. The country must also improve the quality and timeliness of information about local authorities, he said.

Murray Pert, a member of the IMF's panel of fiscal experts, said a high-level committee should have responsibility for overall fiscal risk management and sufficient authority to manage fiscal risk.

Public Debt Management Office director-general Pongpanu Svetarundra admitted Thailand's fiscal risk management needed improvement and agreed with the IMF that coordination among ministries was needed.

He said his office would work out how future government spending on big items like mega-projects would affect the country's fiscal stand.

The Finance Ministry is also preparing to provide fiscal risk information when the government proposes its annual budget bill to Parliament, in order to conform to international standards of public fiscal disclosure, said a senior official who asked not to be named. The law at present does not require the government to present a fiscal risk assessment to Parliament when submitting the budget bill.