Shortcomings identified in plan I referred to the small size of Thailand’s equity market, the
limited number of listed firms and thin trading volume. Several measures were taken to
upgrade institutions and to make capital markets more attractive to issuers and investors. Seen
from the outcome, the first plan’s initiatives seem to have been successful to some degree as
respective quantitative indicators show. Fig. 4 compares such indicators for the year 2000, i.e.
the basis when the plan was set up, and the year 2005, i.e. when the plan was fully
implemented. Despite this obvious success, much of the change was more or less a return to
the situation before the crisis when equity markets had a similar importance for firms finance.