Word: korean
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...South Korea's government announced it would guarantee external borrowing by Korean banks through June up to a total of $100 billion and to inject a further $30 billion into financial markets. The steps are aimed at alleviating growing difficulties Korean banks have faced getting U.S. dollar financing from skittish international banks. Korea's move followed the lead of other Asian governments. Last week, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia guaranteed all bank deposits, part of a larger effort to rebuild confidence in financial markets. A half dozen Asian central banks, including China's, have cut interest rates in recent weeks...
...credit tightened, and stock markets plunged. South Korea has been looking particularly vulnerable to further turmoil. With some $80 billion of its banks' foreign debt maturing by mid-2009, investors worried the country could face a credit crunch that would restrict lending throughout the economy. Those fears have punished Korean stocks and the country's currency. The won plummeted nearly 10% on Oct. 16, its biggest one-day drop since the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Standard & Poor's last week also put seven South Korean banks on negative credit watch...
...Seoul's decision to guarantee external debt incurred by South Korean banks was cheered by market analysts. Goldman Sachs noted in a report that the package - which totals some 13% of Korea's GDP - will "go a long way toward stabilizing the jittery financial markets in Korea." Fitch Ratings added that "these measures will ensure sufficient U.S. dollar liquidity to the banking system and real economy." Investors responded positively, but cautiously. The benchmark Kospi stock market index rose 2.3% on Monday, while the won gained 1.4% against the dollar...
...banks have a mere $70 million of exposure to risky mortgage-linked securities, and nonperforming loans are at an all-time low. Still, Korea has been exposed to the global crisis because its banks rely on more foreign financing than others in Asia. To some, the recent upheaval in Korean markets was eerily similar to the country's financial crisis in 1997. Back then, Korean banks also had trouble refinancing borrowings from jittery foreign banks, creating a shortage of dollars that required an IMF bailout. However, Tan of Standard & Poor's says that current conditions are vastly different than those...
...taken three months of undercover work, inspectors discovered that Vedan Vietnam, a foreign-owned company, was illegally dumping untreated waste into the river. Natural Resources and Environment Minister Pham Khoi Nguyen called it "not just a violation but, in fact, treacherous behavior." An unprecedented crackdown followed: a Korean MSG manufacturer was nabbed dumping toxic waste. Several foreign-owned starch factories, which can release cyanide during processing, were shut down. On October 10, inspectors caught a Vietnamese leather tanning company pumping carcinogenic chemicals into a river in Ho Chi Minh City...