Countries in the region have also done a lot of work aimed at making their financial intermediaries stronger. The frameworks for dealing with impaired assets in the immediate aftermath of the crisis have, together with the economic recovery, resulted in a gradual improvement in the shape of balance sheets of the core institutions, though more progress is needed yet in some countries.
One World Bank report puts the average ratio of NPLs to total loans in the five initial crisis economies at 6 per cent in 2006 – still a high figure by industrial country standards, but down from close to 30 per cent in 1998.