S. Korea Should Maintain Low Interest Rates

South Korea needs to maintain low interest rates to help local companies ride out the global financial crisis, the nation’s financial regulator said Saturday.

Rhee Chang-yong, vice chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said, "It's important to let interest rates remain low to prevent the financial crisis from spreading to the domestic economy," Yonhap reported Saturday.

Rhee also cited the rising household debts as having the potential to create a financial debacle if interest rates keep rising.

According to Rhee, the nation’s financial watchdog also plans to speed up efforts to restructure troubled companies as the nation's economy is widely expected to slip into recession for the first time in a decade.

"There is a limit to the government's ability to recover the economy without restructuring troubled companies," Rhee said, stopping short of elaborating which industries will be restructured.