2. Evolution of the meltdown
For several decades before the crisis Thailand s economic performance had been highly satisfactory average real gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 1960 and 1995 was about 7.7% per annum and the proportion of the population under the poverty line declined from about 60% to less than 15% during the same period. The country was regarded as an example of the so-called east Asian economic miracle (world bank 1993). Yet a couple of years later the country got into a severe financial crisis and essentially became insolvent in terms of not having enough usable foreign reserves left to meet its obligations. Assistance from the international monetary fund (IMF) was needed and a painful adjustment process to recover from the crisis had to be carried out leading to a lost half decade of development the average growth rate between 1996 and 2001 was just about zero.
Part of the reason for the crisis might have come from the very success that Thailand had experienced. The good economic performance over many decades led to overconfidence in the strength of the Thai economy. By the early 1990s, Thailand had become an important production center in the region, and exports were booming. To complement its role on the production side, the thai authorities also wanted to turn Bangkok into a major regional financial center to rival hong kong and Singapore. A program of financial liberalization was embarked upon while the risks inherent in this process were not foreseen. The main mistakes were to pursue financial liberalization without an adequate supervisory framework on financial institutions and appropriate monetary and exchange rate policies. These mistakes substantially increased the risks to economic stability resulting eventually in the 1997 crisis.