FOUR YEARS AFTER Thailand's devaluation of the baht turned Asia's miracle economies into a global laughing stock, analysts are still wondering if the region has woken up and smelt the coffee.
South Korea is usually singled out for praise in fixing the lasting and terrible damage wrought on its economy by the maelstrom of 1997 and 1998.
'The rest of the region has one or both feet in a black hole still,' said Anthony Lok, head of regional banking research at Nomura International.
Non-performing loans, one key measure of progress in solving the region's problems, have actually been rising in Thailand, Taiwan, the Philippines and Malaysia, he said.
Up to 1997, Asia's economies were referred to as 'Tigers' for aggressively growing at up to 10 per cent a year almost regardless of what was happening elsewhere in the world. While the Tigers were built on strong growth in exports, they were also backed by dynamic domestic economies.
Hundreds of thousands of people emerged into the middle class and bought their first homes and cars before the crisis hit.
Analysts now question whether Asia can ever make the necessary reforms to regain its pre-crisis vigour. Instead of being seen as a powerful regional economy in its own right, Asia these days is now regarded just as a geared play on demand for goods from the West.