18. It can be argued that increasing prudential standards will bring about a stronger
financial sector, which is necessary for a sustained recovery. However, given the country's
bankruptcy when the Baht was floated and the inevitable move into recession from measures
necessary to rebuild foreign reserves, the timeframe for achieving international prudential
standards was too short. This contributed substantially to the malfunctioning of the financial
sector. The adjustment package could have been sequenced better. The currency crisis
should be the primary focus at the beginning, and the timeframe for increasing prudential
standards should have been longer. This would put less additional pressures on the financial
institutions at the beginning of the crisis. They were under enough pressures already from the
higher Baht value of foreign debt and the recession that would occur anyway from the
adjustment program to deal with the currency crisis. Financial institutions are still now
struggling to increase capital, even with the government package on 14 August 1998, which
enabled the government to issue up to Baht 300 billion in bond to help with financial sector
re-capitalisation.
19. NPL continues to increase. For Thai banks, the ratio of NPL in total lending
increased from 29.4% in the first quarter of 1998 to 51.6% in the first quarter of 1999, and the
corresponding ratios for finance companies were 43.8% and 65.5% respectively (table 6). For
the whole financial system, the ratio of NPL was about 47% at the end of the first quarter of
1999. The extent of NPL will dampen any economic recovery. The key question for 1999 is
how to turn non-performing loans into performing loans with as little disruption to production
as possible. That is to move the business sector into a state of greater solvency, just as the
country as a whole has moved into a state of greater solvency in 1998.
20. Solving the NPL problem is certainly not easy. By the end of March 1999, the
Debt Restructuring Committee (under the umbrella of the Bank of Thailand) had only
concluded about Baht 281 billion in debt restructuring. About Baht 2.7 trillion of NPL
remains to be worked out. To help in the debt restructuring process, the government has
passed a number of laws, such as the bankruptcy and foreclosure laws.16 These laws shift the
balance of power between creditor and debtor towards the creditor. Under the old laws, if a
creditor takes a debtor to court for refusing to pay his debt, it may take 8-10 years for the
process to be concluded. Under the new laws, the timeframe is much shorter (but still may
take 2-3 years). However, for these laws to be successful, the shift in the balance of power
that they bring about should lead to a high percentage of voluntary debt-restructuring. If the
passage of these laws end up with most creditors resorting to taking their debtors to court,
then one may see severe disruption to production in the real sector before the legal process is
concluded. This could lead to another round of business closures on a broad scale, and the
plight of many of hundreds of thousand or even millions of workers will be at risk.