Even more dangerous was the fact that short-term foreign debt (with a maturity of less than 1 year) increased very rapidly. By the end of 1996, the total short-term foreign debt was about $US47.7 billion, which was larger than the amount of official foreign reserves at the time that was about $US38.7 billion. Even after taking into account the foreign assets of the banking system, the total foreign assets (official and private) were less than the amount of short-term foreign debt of the country.