5. LESSONS NOT YET LEARNT AND NEW RISKS
The impact of the financial crisis was so severe and widespread and there have been so
many analyses and debates about the underlying causes of the crisis and appropriate resolution
measures that it would be hard not to have learned a lot from the crisis. One can say that the
probability of a similar crisis occurring in the region again is very low. However, if another
crisis were to occur, then it will almost certainly not be a crisis of a similar nature to the
previous one. It is therefore important to try to identify sources of new risks to economic
stability (if any) even though these might not yet have led to significant problems. In the case
of Thailand, there are a number of potential problem areas that need to be carefully monitored.
The first issue has to do with political interference in financial institutions. The main
targets for political interference are the state-owned commercial banks and the specialized
public financial institutions. These could be used to extend credit in imprudent manner to
those well connected politically or to appease the policy of the government. Both of these
appeared to have been the case in Thailand under the Thaksin government and should
certainly be a cause for concern. The need to control imprudent lending was clearly an
important lesson from the crisis. If the state is the cause of imprudent lending itself then the
risk to economic stability increases significantly.
A key policy agenda of the Thaksin administration was to pump credit into the
grassroots and the SME sector in order to gain popular support. As part of these “populist”
policies, numerous schemes have been initiated, such as the 1 million baht village fund,
people’s bank, SME promotion, small-medium-large village fund, and uncounted number of
subsidized products and social welfare schemes. The state-owned banks and the specialized
public financial institutions have been key instruments of these populist policies. They have
been providing “state-directed” lending to serve these policies. A number of incidents indicate
the potential risks inherent in this approach.
In 2004, there was high tension between the BOT and the Ministry of Finance over the
reappointment of Viroj Nualkhair as the President of Krung Thai Bank, a state-owned bank
that is also Thailand’s largest commercial bank. The BOT alleged that Krung Thai Bank
imprudently lent 46 billion Baht (about $US1.1 billion) in the second quarter of 2001 and that
Viroj should be held accountable for this lapse and blocked his reappointment to a second
term. The Minister of Finance, who was the one who appointed Viroj, sided with Viroj and
tensions between the BOT and the Ministry of Finance dragged on for weeks. Eventually,
Thaksin had to go along with the BOT’s position in order to minimize political costs. This
episode clearly showed the risks of political interference in state-owned banks.
An even more direct interference is the use of specialized public financial institutions
(SFI) to carry out the government policy of widespread credit extension to the grassroots and
SME. Banks such as the Government Savings Bank, the Government Housing Bank, and the
SME Development Bank played important roles in this policy. Between 2000 and 2005,
lending of these SFI to households and businesses expanded by 15.2% on average compared
to an average growth of only 4.2% for lending by commercial banks and finance companies to
the same group. The lending of Government Savings Bank and SME Development Bank to
households and business grew particularly rapidly at an average of 32.2% and 72.4% per
annum, respectively, between 2000 and 2005. Total lending of the SFI to households and
businesses increased from 13.3% of GDP in 2000 to 18.7% of GDP in 2005.
Although lending to the grassroots and SME can provide tremendous benefits to those
who can make good use of the lending, too much lending will inevitably cause more harm
than good. Parts of the lending were not used for productive investment, some were spent on
consumer products, and some of those that were invested in commodity production (some in
so-called One Tambon [Sub-District] One Product projects) led to oversupply of similar
products in the country. Although these lendings have led to increases in NPL for some of the
SFI, the extent of the increases have not been large. The main reason is that most of these
lendings are for relatively modest amounts, and when the payments are due, borrowers can
normally borrow from somewhere (such as informal money lenders) to repay the loan and
then take out a new loan again. So the balance sheet of the SFI are not too adversely affected.
However, the indebtedness of the grassroots gradually increases.
This already happened in the past. When the Thaksin government first came into power
in 2001, one of its first policy platforms was to forgive farmers’ debt. Almost 2.8 million
farmers participated in that scheme.