Heading towards a full-blown recession

The Korean economy is in danger of going into recession -- and dragging regional economies down in its considerable wake -- raising questions about the IMF rescue package and its associated conditions.

The assumption underlying the conditions wrung by the IMF out of South Korea for its rescue fund was that broad economic settings may be applied with a precision which allows instant micro-surgery on an ailing economy. That assumption was, and will forever remain, plain wrong.

The key driver of economic growth -- consumption expenditure -- has almost entirely stalled and far from achieving that economic growth target of "about 3 percent", the Korean economy looks increasingly like it is headed for a full-blown recession in 1998.

-- The Business Times, Singapore