Reflections now the dust has settled

At the World Bank/IMF annual meetings in Hong Kong three years ago the powerful interim committee gave the IMF a green light for yet another mission. The fund was keen to promote unrestricted international capital movements.

But those were the days when money had just started to stampede out of Asia’s crisis countries. It was a memorable case of bad timing.

During the crisis attitudes towards the free movement of capital hardened. Those who believe that capital account convertibility (CAC) would bring huge growth benefits to developing countries were on the defensive.