And that's positive in terms of going forward. Although Asia still lags the West in terms of corporate governance and promoting competition, that gap may well close under the new pressures for change created by technology, argue economists such as Ajay Kapur, executive director of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Hong Kong. The quicker the IT revolution is embraced, he adds, the better the prospects for economic development. Of course, Asia's macroeconomic landscape is hardly idyllic. Banks remain sick.
Cronyism is far from dead.
There's still a mountain of corporate debt. And lots of companies made insolvent by the crisis are still alive. Yet there has been plenty of positive change and more is on the way. While there are several forces pushing reform, including political leaders such as South Korean President Kim Dae Jung and Thai Finance Minister Tarrin Nimmanahaeminda, both of whom continue to support restructuring programmes first introduced by the IMF at the height of the crisis, none is as important as technology. One of the clearest examples of technology's role in boosting competition is the way it's forcing Asian governments to speed up deregulation of telecommunications, which in turn has spurred phone companies to offer everything from free Internet access in Singapore to free long-distance calls in Hong Kong.