the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, and with the crash in the New York Stock Exchange, the national banking system was deeply affected and another devaluation came as a result. Creation of the fund In 1990, in an attempt to prevent situations similar to those of the previous two administrations, the government of Carlos Salinas de Gortari instituted the Fobaproa, a contingency fund for extraordinary financial problems. The Fobaproa would assume outstanding debt and would capitalize banks in the advent of economic crises that would present liquidity problems for these institutions. The following year hundreds of companies the government owned were privatized, in an attempt to reduce government expenses and to liberalize the economy. Eighteen banks were sold at 37.8 billion pesos for a total of 61.6 billion pesos for all 409 companies. 1994 economic crisis In December 1994 during the government of Ernesto Zedillo (December 1994–December 2000), after 6 years of battling with inflation, an overvalued peso, the reduction of international dollar reserves, political scandals in 1994 in Mexico and other factors caused one of the worst economic crisis in the recent history of Mexico. Skyrocketing interest rates caused that many companies were unable to meet payments while others withdrew massive amounts of capital. With the risk of another financial collapse the Fobaproa was applied in 1995. The Fobaproa assumed debt for 552 billion pesos. Not applying the Fobaproa would have likely caused an interruption of credit and withdrawal from saving accounts for millions of families and thousands of companies. In January 1995 the Procapte (Programa de Capitalización Temporal (Procapte) or "Temporary capitalization program") was created while the Fobaproa was assuming outstanding debt to banks. The Procapte allowed faster access to a higher volume of foreign capital and the solvency of banks. A condition for Fobaproa to assume the debt was that stockholders of these financial institutions would re-invest their capital. In 1996 the Ucabe (Unidad Coordinadora para el Acuerdo Bancario Empresarial (Ucabe) or "Coordinating unit for the Bank-Entrepreneur Agreement") was created so that debt could be re-structured through it. 54 companies took advantage of the Ucabe to re-structure 9.7 billion dollars and avoid defaults. Preventive measures In March 1998, the Zedillo cabinet presented to the Congress of Mexico four initiatives to create a legal framework to reduce the risk of another banking crisis and to create more efficient mechanisms to supervise the credit activity and to ensure bank capitalization.