Famous Asian Tiger Crisis

The term Four Asian Tigers or East Asian Tigers refers to the economies of Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Korea.They are also known as Asia's Four Little Dragons. These countries and territories were noted for maintaining high growth rates and rapid industrialization between the early 1960s and 1990s. In the early 21st century, with the original four Tigers at fully developed status, attention has increasingly shifted to other Asian economies which are experiencing rapid economic transformation at the present time.
The Four Asian Tigers pursued an export-driven model of economic development; these countries and territories focused on developing goods for export to highly-industrialized nations. Domestic consumption was discouraged through government policies such as high tariffs. The Four Asian Tigers singled out education as a means of improving productivity; these territories focused on improving the education system at all levels; heavy emphasis was placed on ensuring that all children attended elementary education and compulsory high school education. Money was also spent on improving the college and university system
The Crisis -
The Four Asian Tigers were strongly affected by the 1997 Asian financial crisis, which impacted each Tiger to varying degrees. While Taiwan was not as strongly affected, South Korea was badly battered by the crisis. However, South Korea rose up to become the 9th largest economy in the world (2007 standard) and Taiwan stayed as the 16th largest economy in the world. Because of the focus on export-driven growth, many of the Tigers became caught up in a game of currency devaluation. The current criticism of the Four Asian Tigers is that these economies focus exclusively on export-demand, at the cost of import-demand. Thus, these economies are heavily reliant on the economic health of their targeted export nations. In addition, these nations have met difficulties after they lost their initial competitive edge, cheap productive labour. India, China and much of Southeast Asia have now emerged as fast-growing economies based on cheap labour, largely replacing the Tigers.
Some economies were becoming overheated, stock prices were overvalued, property prices were sky-high and investors were jittery and nervous. Because of the structural weaknesses in the regulatory framework, once capital flight began, the stock market nosedived and the major Asian currencies depreciated significantly. This caused social unrest, political instability, regime change and financial bailing out by the International Monetary Fund. This also gave impetus to some Asian governments to impose capital controls to restrict currency outflows and maintain monetary and financial stability.