<<SINGAPORE, Sept 3 (Reuters) - The following is a chronology of Asia's financial crisis.
1997
Jan 23 - Leading South Korean steel maker Hanbo Steel Corp defaults on loans, the first of a string of major corporate failures in 1997.
May 14-15 - Thailand's baht currency comes under attack by speculators who decided Thailand's slowing economy and political instability meant it was time to sell.
Thailand and Singapore jointly intervene to defend the baht.
The Philippines is affected. The central bank raises the overnight rate 1- percentage points to 13 percent and dumps dollars.
June 19 - Amnuay Viravan, staunchly against devaluing the baht, resigns as Thai finance minister. Resignation has immediate impact in the Philippines, where the overnight deposit rate rises to 15 percent.
June 27 - Thai central bank suspends operations of 16 cash-strapped finance companies and orders them to submit merger or consolidation plans.
June 30 - Thai Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh assures the nation in a televised address there will be no devaluation of the baht.
July 2 - After a failed defence of the Thai baht, Bangkok floats its currency and calls on the IMF for ''technical assistance.''
The baht is effectively devalued by about 15-20 percent.
July 8 - Malaysia's central Bank Negara has to intervene aggressively to defend the ringgit.
In Indonesia, the rupiah starts to crumble.
July 14 - The IMF offers the Philippines almost $1.1 billion in financial support.
July 24 - Asian currency meltdown. The rupiah, baht, ringgit and peso slump as confidence in the region deteriorates.
August 11 - In Tokyo, the IMF unveils a rescue package for Thailand including loans of $16 billion from the IMF and Asian nations.
August 14 - Indonesia abolishes its system of a managed exchange rate. The rupiah plunges.
August 20 - IMF approves a $3.9 billion credit for Thailand. Brunei later adds $500 million to the bail-out package, bringing it to $17.2 billion.
Sept 20 - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad tells delegates of IMF/World Bank conference in Hong Kong that currency trading is immoral.
Oct 8 - Indonesia says it will ask the IMF for financial assistance.
Oct 20-23 - The Hong Kong stock market suffers its heaviest drubbing ever, shedding nearly a quarter of its value in four days on uncertainty over the Hong Kong dollar.
Around this time the South Korean won also begins to slump in value.
Oct 27 - Asian jitters spill over on to world stock markets. The Dow plunges 554 points, its largest single-day point loss ever.
Oct 31 - Indonesia's IMF package is unveiled. It provides for as much as $40 billion in aid, although the front-line defence is $23 billion.
Nov 1 - Indonesia shuts down 16 troubled banks.
Nov 5 - IMF approves a $10 billion loan for Indonesia as part of the massive international package.
Nov 17 - Korea abandons its defence of the won, which rapidly falls to 1,000 to the dollar.
Dec 4 - IMF approves a $21 billion loan for South Korea, part of a bail-out package that will total nearly $60 billion.
Dec 8 - Thailand closes 56 of 58 previously suspended finance companies.
1998
Jan 8 - Representatives of the IMF and South Korea agree to a 90-day rollover of short-term debt.
Jan 12 - Peregrine, one of Asia's largest independent investment banks, collapses under a mountain of bad loans to Indonesian borrowers. Shares fall sharply in Hong Kong, China and Singapore.
Jan 15 - IMF managing director Michel Camdessus and President Suharto sign an agreement strengthening economic reforms.
Jan 22 - The rupiah collapses. It is dealt at 17,000 to the dollar at one stage. Bank Indonesia intervenes and drives the currency back to end at 11,800.
Jan 27 - Indonesia announces a temporary freeze on debt servicing.
Jan 28 - International creditor banks and the South Korean government say they have agreed on a plan to exchange $24 billion of short-term debt for new loans maturing in one, two and three years.
Jan 30 - U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warns Asia's financial crisis could spread.
Feb 14 - The IMF threatens to cut off the bail-out fund for Indonesia over its plans to introduce a currency board.
Feb 26 - Indonesia's borrowers and lenders begin negotiations on rescheduling at least $70 billion in private off-shore debt.
March 1 - Indonesian President Suharto says reforms prescribed by the IMF have not worked.
March 4 - The IMF approves release of the third tranche payment from Thailand's package and commends the Thai government for its economic reforms.
March 6 - IMF says its board will not discuss Indonesia's economic reform programme before April, effectively delaying a $3 billion payment initially expected by March 15.
March 23 - Indonesia nearly doubles interest rates to boost the rupiah and control inflation.
April 1 - Japan begins steps aimed at liberalising its financial markets to make them ''free, fair and global'' by 2001. Tokyo share prices fall, the yen dips and Japan's central bank governor pronounces every economic indicator bad.
April 2 - The chairman of electronics giant Sony, Norio Ohga, says the Japanese economy is on the verge of collapse.
April 3 - U.S. ratings agency Moody's lowers its outlook on Japan's sovereign debt to negative from stable. Asian currencies fall sharply on the news.
May 7 - Fears that riots in the Indonesian city of Medan will spill over into a wider social crisis send regional stocks into retreat.
May 11 - India stuns the world with announcement of three underground nuclear tests. Pakistan stocks tumble 3.52 percent while India's National Stock Exchange index slides 2.55 percent.
May 13 - The United States imposes economic sanctions on India and Japan suspends some loans.
May 14 - Mobs rampage through Jakarta and students demand Suharto's resignation. Indonesia's worsening crisis takes centre-stage for Asian markets, several of which suffer sharp losses.
May 15 - Suharto returns home from a Group of 15 summit in Egypt amid signs he is losing his 32-year grip on power.
May 21 - Suharto steps down under strong pressure and is succeeded by former deputy president B.J. Habibie. Markets enjoy a limited rally. Jakarta stocks surge more than three percent.
May 25 - South Korean shares plummet 6.78 percent despite a lifting of foreign ownership limits on stocks. Most other Asian markets shrug off Seoul's fall.
May 26 - Seoul's KOSPI share index continues to dive, losing a further six percent, hurt by a looming recession and labour unrest.
May 27 - Asian markets are hammered as the yen falls against the dollar and amid mounting fears of economic recession. Hong Kong stocks plunge more than five percent after Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa warns of possible recession.
May 28 - Pakistan conducts nuclear tests.
May 29 - The dollar rockets to a seven-year high of 139 yen on fears of a possible nuclear arms race in Asia and after news that Japan's unemployment rate hit 4.1 percent in April, its highest level since the end of World War Two.
Recession looms in much of Asia. Hong Kong reports that its gross domestic product contracted two percent in first quarter of 1998. About the same time Indonesia and Malaysia also report their economies contracted in the first quarter.
June 1 - Pakistani stocks plunge 12.38 percent as traders get their first chance to react to sanctions imposed after the country's nuclear tests. Asian markets are hit as nuclear tension adds to a cocktail of domestic problems.
June 5 - International lenders and Indonesian companies reach a deal to reschedule the country's massive corporate debt.
June 8 - The yen falls past 140 to the dollar, sending a shudder through Asian markets. Signs that Japan and other leading economies are unlikely to intervene to support the unit sap confidence further.
June 10 - China's central bank governor warns that the weak yen is having a severe impact on Beijing's foreign trade, raising fears that China may devalue its yuan currency. Markets across Asia tumble, led by a near five percent fall on Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index.
In Taiwan, the local dollar hits new 11-year lows and the Australian dollar plummets past 59 U.S. cents.
June 11 - U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin all but rules out the possibility of joint intervention by major industrial powers to bolster the yen. He says the weak yen reflects the state of the Japanese economy.
June 12 - Economic Planning Agency says Japan's gross domestic product fell by an annualised rate of 5.3 percent in the first quarter, signalling recession. The yen dives towards 145 to the dollar as hopes fade of official intervention.
June 17 - The U.S. joins Japan in selling the dollar in favour of the yen.
The action takes markets by surprise and the yen rises to a high of around 134 at one stage from a level of some 142.50 prior to the intervention.
June 19 - U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin tells Reuters he is not expecting high level meetings in Tokyo to produce specific new action plans on the economy. His statements put further pressure on the yen.
June 20 - Top finance officials from the Group of Seven meet in Tokyo and vow to cooperate as appropriate in the currency markets.
June 23 - IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus calls the yen fall a ''crisis within the crisis.''
June 25 - Indonesia and the IMF sign another letter of intent -- the fourth. The letter says that Indonesian GDP is expected to contract by at least 10 percent in 1998 and says the rupiah will stabilise at around 10,000 by the last quarter of 1998.
June 26 - Malaysia cuts bank statutory reserve requirements to eight percent from 10 percent.
June 29 - For the first time, South Korea closes banks, shutting five ailing operations in a major step towards meeting the mandate of the massive IMF rescue package.
July 2 - World Bank approves $1 billion loan disbursement to Indonesia, another $6 billion to arrive from international donors.
Japan Prime Minister Hashimoto and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party agree to adopt bridge bank system to tackle the country's massive bad loans.
July 4 - Foreign Minister Keizo Obuchi hints at permanent tax cuts.
July 8 - Hashimoto vows to seek permanent tax cuts and an overhaul of the tax system, but reveals no details.
July 9 - South Korea announces its intention to double this year's budget deficit in a bid to stimulate the economy.
July 12 - The ruling LDP is trounced in Upper House elections, winning only 44 seats, well short of a majority and 17 less than the 61 it had held prior to the election.
South Korea's Financial Supervisory Commission imposes involuntary restructuring on conglomerates, or chaebols, directing eight banks to pick about 16 chaebols for the exercise.
July 13 - PM Hashimoto announces his resignation and cancels planned official visits to France and the United States.
July 14 - Tens of thousands of South Korean workers down tools to protest against wage cuts and layoffs, part of the massive corporate restructuring programme.
July 15 - IMF approves immediate $1 billion loan payment to Indonesia.
July 16 - Striking Korean workers return to work, but warn of further protests if necessary.
Indonesia revises 98/99 budget to reflect the deteriorating economy, assuming a rupiah/dlr rate of 10,600.
Foreign governments announce their agreement to reschedule the country's $54.4 billion in sovereign debt.
July 20 - Protests begin at Hyundai's factory in Ulsan, striking workers pitch tents.
July 23 - Record 7.0 percent unemployment in South Korea, with more than 1.5 million unemployed.
July 24 - Obuchi wins 225 votes out of 411 in LDP voting to become LDP president and, almost certainly, prime minister.
July 29 - Moody's Investors Service warned that it may downgrade credit ratings of Thai banks due to poor results.
July 30 - Parliament formally names Obuchi prime minister; he then announces his new cabinet.
August 3 - Thailand unveils 25 point plan to salvage its economy at the start of two weeks of talks with the IMF. The plan includes measures to create jobs and stimulate the economy, and is later endorsed by the IMF.
Indonesia launches debt rescheduling agency to aid the country's debt-ridden companies.
August 6 - New Japanese prime minister Obuchi announces a plan to vary tax cuts according to existing tax brackets, and says he will ask parliament to approve cuts worth more than six trillion yen ($41.3 billion).
August 14 - The Hong Kong government intervenes in the local stock market, buying stocks to squeeze out investors accused of playing the currency and interest rates against the stock market. The Hang Seng Index soars 8.47 percent.
August 17 - Russia effectively devalues the rouble and declares a 90-day moratorium on some foreign debt. The next day, Asian markets slide.
Thousands of Hyundai Motor workers rally near the South Korean company's main factory complex in Ulsan, suspending production in protest over layoffs. Police stand ready for action.
August 25 - Hyundai workers return to work after a union-brokered agreement to limit number of layoffs.
August 26 - IMF approves $1 billion loan to Indonesia.
August 31 - Wall Street suffers its second-largest point loss in history, plunging 6.37 percent and sparking another series of stock market routs in Asia.
IMF approves $900 million loan payment to South Korea.
Sept 1 - Malaysia imposes new foreign exchange controls to contain speculation and restrict capital flows. The IMF warns that the move may undermine investor confidence.
Sept 2 - Malaysia announces that the ringgit will be fixed at 3.80 to the dollar indefinitely.
Wall Street stages its second-largest comeback in history, sparking off a rally in Asian markets.
Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim is sacked. Police state that Anwar is under investigation over allegations made in a banned book, ''Fifty Reasons Why Anwar Cannot Become Prime Minister.''
Sept 3 - South Korean riot police storm plants owned by Mando Machinery Corp., the country's largest auto-parts producer, to end a strike over planned mass layoffs. >> |
