THIS month's issue of Institutional Investor magazine sums up the bitter row over the Bangkok expressway financing contract with the headline: ''Thanks for the highway, now take a hike.'' The headline expresses the international banking community's view of the Thai Government's action in ripping up the contract.
In 1989, the magazine made the US$1 billion Bangkok expressway contract one of its ''Deals of the Year''.
Four years on, however, the Thai cabinet has unilaterally decided to rewrite the contract.
Bankers and economists have up to now provided the country's coalition government with a backbone of economic prudence.
But the row over the expressway deal is likely to cast a shadow over not only the government but Thailand's reputation for having enough technocrats in enough key places to keep the economy on track - in spite of the country's often free-wheeling style of government and regulation.
A consortium of road builders led by Japan's Kumagai Gumi and its bankers say the Thai Government has reneged by slashing toll fees, delaying sharing revenues with the contractors to the tune of an estimated HK$300 million a day and refusing to let the builders operate the 20-kilometre ''Second Stage Expressway'' which was scheduled to open on June 1.