The country's external accounts are far healthier: the current account has been in surplus every year since 1997 except 2005; foreign-exchange reserves have soared to US$71bn, up from the 1997 low of US$26bn reached when the BOT gave up its costly efforts to keep the baht fixed to the dollar; and external debt levels have dropped sharply, with most of the private sector's short-term debt taking the form of trade credits rather than loans, a reversal from the pre-1997 situation.