Given its foreign currency obligations, Thailand simply cannot participate economically in the international community without sufficient foreign reserves. Therefore, tackling the problem of almost complete depletion of foreign reserves had to be a main priority of the IMF Program. The IMF put together a lending package of US$ 16.7 billion for
Thailand.3 However,theIMFpackageismeantonlyasarelativelyshort-termliquidity support, with repayment for each drawing due in three years. Thus, Thailand had to enact a stringent reform package to turn around the foreign reserve position. The package had to generate sufficient net inflows of foreign exchanges to regain market confidence that Thailand would remain in a position to meet its foreign currency obligations.