Table 2 shows data on one type of foreign liability, short-term debts (with maturity of one
year or less) owed to foreign commercial banks, and one major type of foreign asset, the official
foreign exchange reserves of the central bank. In Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea, short-term debt
exceeded available foreign exchange reserves just before the crisis hit. The ratio was slightly
lower (but still high) for Malaysia and the Philippines, two other Asian economies that were hit
badly, but not so severely, by the crisis. Short-term debt far exceeded reserves in Mexico and
Argentina just before those two countries were hit by financial crisis. The ratio of short term
foreign debt to reserves hit 1.7 in Mexico and 1.3 in Argentina in June 1994. The pattern also
held for Russia in mid-1998, when it faced intense balance of payments pressures. In the case of
Brazil, the data show that in June 1998, its reserves slightly exceeded its short-term debt.
However, by late September, Brazil=s reserves had dwindled to $45 billion, below the level of its
short-term debt, and the real was under intense attack.