This commercial imperative was successfully transplanted into the political processes, so we saw, for example, the OECD insisting on capital market deregulation as a condition of Korea’s membership of the organisation. These forces combined to form powerful rhetorical pressures, to deregulate as fully as possible, with special virtue being attached to those who opened their markets at the most breakneck speed.
One of the notable manifestations of this was the Bangkok International Banking Facility, whereby small Thai businesses were presented with a frictionless conduit to international financial markets, where they could borrow at attractively low interest rates, in foreign currency.