ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters. It discusses the degree of distress among Thai small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the East Asian crisis and through International Monetary Fund -led structural adjustment policies. Various indicators about the resilience versus the vulnerability of SMEs have been identified and should be further explored to anticipate the potential effects of future economic and financial fluctuations. The part also discusses the absence or marginal role of the state until 1999. The state was not able to address market distortions and failures working against SME survival and development. It aims to demonstrate that the impact of the crisis has been uneven on different categories of SMEs. The hypothesis has been substantially documented but is not yet fully verified that those local SMEs linked to foreign firms and their affiliates were particularly resilient to the crisis.
