Addressing Thailand´s Non-Performing Loans

There is probably no need to remind anyone of that bleak day in July 1997 when the Thai Baht finally succumbed to the pressure and collapsed. That incident triggered off the domino-like fall of a then over-leveraged Thai financial system, and exposed basic structural defects in corporate Thailand. Corporate Thailand was then, as it is now, largely dependent on banks and a number of financial institutions for financing. A chicken-and-egg situation ensued whereby the companies weighed by heavy-debt burden, courtesy of wayward lending and borrowing practices of the 90s, started to collapse one by one on the one hand, and the banks collapsing over the unabated weight of Non-performing loans or NPLs, on the other hand.