The one thing that one can say about the Thailand of old is that we really did underestimate the problems we were in and the structural changes needed to put us back to the forefront of international competition. Let me recall that two years ago, we were going through a negative growth of 10.7%, and inflation of 8.1%. The short-term three months fixed deposit rate at that time was 8.25%, and the minimum lending rate was 15.8%, having peaked at over 20% earlier in the year. The only good news at that time seems to have been the large current account surplus of around 10 billion dollars, which would help stabilize the baht dollar exchange rate as well as repay our huge debts, which had reached an unbearable level now known to be $ 105 billion or over 100% of GDP at the particular point of time that I was making the statement to this august body in 1998. At that time, I indicated that in my mind, our problem was structural, and that to solve and put Thailand back on the growth path, we must make structural changes, rather than just pumping money back in. Now, I am even more convinced that I was right and we have indeed pursued that path of restructuring and rediscovering ourselves. Let me elaborate a little. Prominent but unnoticed by many Thailand-watchers was our being invited and joining as shareholders of the BIS, properly known as the Bank for International Settlements.
Although this was not a major decision for us, it was a very prominent confirmation of our status in the world economy. BIS has less than 50 shareholders and is really an elite clique of the leading central banks. That it has decided to invite us to become shareholders was in recognition of the status that Thailand now has in the financial and economic market place of the world. That the BIS last week decided to buy back all its privately held shares, becoming purely a central bank for central banks is of course a reinforcement of this development. Another achievement of our own doing, this time towards transparency is that we are now qualified in the Special Data Dissemination Standard of the IMF, the 21st country to do so in May this year. This set of data is a guarantee whereby a country delivers enough information in a timely manner, such that international investors have a reasonable chance of evaluating its performance and prospects. Many leading countries are still unable to qualify, because they have things that they wish not to be shown to the public, whereas we have taken the road that what cannot be shown in public perhaps  1  BIS Review 86/2000  should not be done. We therefore participated also in the international reserves template both voting for it, and qualifying in the first group of countries to do so that have subscribed to the SDDS.