The floating of the Thai baht in July 1997 marked the onset of a period of market turbulence associated with the halting of new funds to and, in most cases, the flight of existing money from, many economies in Southeast Asia.
Because many entities in those nations relied on short-term funding in foreign currency for their ongoing operations, the drying up of funding from global financial markets quickly placed serious strains on them. And because the lines between the private and official sectors were often drawn imprecisely, these funding problems for firms soon became the burdens of national governments.