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The Social Development and Human Security Ministry says it's keen to fast track adoptions.

Every year, about 4,500 are adopted, mostly by rel¬atives.

Ministry chief Wallop Ploytubtim says it and other government depart¬ments agree the time chil¬dren spend in orphanages needs to be slashed.

He explains provincial offices will fast track fami¬lybackground checks, hopefully halving the cur¬rent 107 days this takes. Adoptiontrial reports will be completed in just 30 days from now on, too.

Provincial Administration Department checks of will be sped to 15 days. Final adoption registration will be a 30minute task.

Police checks of foreign residents seeking to adopt a child will now take 30 days, down from about 45.

Consulate and embassy processing should now take just four days. It used to be 10.

Adoption centre boss Chalathip Punnabutr says between January and June there were 2,699 children adopted, 349 by foreign families.

Last year, there were 4,349 adoptions. In 2006 the figure was 3,988.

She says few families adopt because they believe the adage that caring for "baby crocodile or a tiger cub" will hurt you in the end.

Chalathip says it's trying to get more families to adopt, especially childless couples.

Most orphans are adopted within their first year.

Doctors say behaviour is dominated from the way we are raised so, if a child is adopted, it has a superior chance of being well adjusted. Just 30 per cent of behaviour is genetic.