Ayutthaya had been able to take advantage of growing maritime commerce as a result of administrative reorganization under King Trailok (r. 1448-88). A new ministry, the Mahatthai, was established to supervise civil matters and to oversee foreign affairs and trade. • In the early sixteenth century some Portuguese ranked Ayutthaya with the most powerful continental empires in Asia, and its prosperity was such that later Thai chroniclers regarded this period as a golden age. • the rise of small but thriving exchange centres gave a new impulse towards the development of larger groupings, especially in the Philippines and eastern Indonesia. In these areas there had previously been little need or incentive to move towards the formation of 'kingdoms', but a more commercialized environment made increasingly obvious the value of some form of economic and political cooperation in order to strengthen links with wider trading networks