Financial conditions facilitated major privatizations of public sector banks, coupled with their recapitalization, along lines we had frequently suggested. Economic activity remained weak in the first half of 1997, bearing out the forecasts we made at the end of 1996 and early last year.
With many regional governments over-burdened with debt, there has been renewed recourse to the IMF and the other multilateral institutions for financial assistance. Here at home, we have not been spared. After GDP growth averaging 7 percent since 2001, the economy saw a reversal, starting in the fourth quarter of 2008.