In 1995 The Economist projected that by 2020 Thailand would be the world's eighth-largest economy. Its forecast, which now looks a tad, shall we say, optimistic, followed a 10-year run in which Thailand muscled out even China as the world's fastest-growing economy, expanding at a blistering 8.4 per cent a year. Those were the days.
The decade after the Asian financial crisis, which began with the devaluation of the baht and ended with the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister, has not been so kind. Although the country bounced back from the 1997 devaluation, when it carelessly misplaced 15 per cent of gross domestic product in 18 months, the economy never recovered its former vigour. It has bumbled along at a respectable, but less than socially transformative, 4-5 per cent a year. This year its economy is likely to shrink by some 5 per cent. In that, admittedly, it is not alone.
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