Thai central bank wants more policy room, sets stage for rare rate rise

THAILAND - BANGKOK. Thailand's central bank governor said on Wednesday that building some monetary policy space for the future should be a "prudent" consideration, signalling that long-unchanged Thai interest rates will rise.

"When we are confident that economic growth is close to its potential, and inflation will remain within our target range, the MPC can also take a longer term view and this is when policy space should be taken into consideration," Bank of Thailand Governor Veerathai Santiprabhob told a business seminar.

The BOT's Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has left its policy rate unchanged at 1.50 percent, near record lows, since April 2015.

It has started discussing the timing of the first policy rate rise in years. The next policy review is Sept. 19.

The BOT is closely monitoring capital inflows as foreign money coming into short-term bonds has been larger than for other countries in the region, Veerathai said. "We are not quite happy with the fund inflows," he said.