Thai Finance Ministry pushes for more foreign investment in Thai bond market.

(From Thai Press Reports)

Section: Investment - The Finance Ministry plans to increase the proportion of non-resident investment in the domestic bond market to 5% from less than 1% currently over the next 10 years, according to Pannee Stawarodom, the director-general of the Public Debt Management Office, the Bangkok Post reports.

The value of issues outstanding in the local bond market was 2.7 trillion baht at the end of last year, reflecting a steady rise from only 169 billion baht in 1997. But foreign investment accounted for less than 1% of the total, compared with 5-10% in Japan and 2-5% in Singapore.

The stable baht and relatively higher bond …