As the extent of net reserves depletion became more widely known, the baht depreciated rapidly, from 25.8 baht/$US at the end of june 1997 to 53.8 baht/$US by the end of january 1998.
The baht strengthened after that but the average exchange rate in 1998 was still about 41.4 baht/$US, a depreciation of about 38% compared with before the float.
With the bath depreciation and the severe economic recession, the current account turned into a substantial surplus starting in the fourth quarter of 1997 and averaged over $US1 billion per month through the end of 1999 (Table 1).
As a result, net foreign reserves increased from about $US2.8 billion in the middle of 1997 to about $US16.2 billion by the middle of 1999.
In August 1999, Thailand decided to forgo further disbursement from the IMF package, about 2 years after entering into the IMF assistance program.
As a result, the various conditions imposed by the IMF on longer became binding.
Thus, the rationale for imposing structural reform conditions that require a long time to successfully implement is not that clear.
Although Thailand's foreign exchange position turned around relatively quickly, it took much longer to clear up problems in the economy.
The baht float put a severe strain on much of the financial and real sector.
Because of the large depreciation of the baht, those with unhedged foreign debt were driven to bankruptcy, and the country experienced a deep recession in 1998 (real GDP declining by more than 10%) with broad adverse economic and social consequences throughout the economy.