Fern's cocktail bar appears each night on a sidewalk between a group of scantily clad women from the go-go club next door and a noodle stall near one of Bangkok's infamous red-light districts. By morning it has vanished.
The bar, the prostitution and even the food stall are illegal, part of a shadow economy that one economist estimates is worth more than two-fifths of the nation's gross domestic product.
The ruling military junta says that it has cracked down on corruption, and that this is the reason why the country has the slowest economic growth among developing nations in East Asia.
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