Korea has recouped 61.1 percent of the public funds it injected to bail out troubled financial firms during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the financial watchdog said Friday.
The country retrieved 103.1 trillion won ($89.3 billion) of a total of 168.7 trillion won in public funds as of the end of May, according to the Financial Services Commission (FSC).
The recovery rate rose to 61.1 percent last month from 60.9 percent at the end of November last year. The government recouped 15.9 billion won last month.
The South Korean government poured massive amounts of taxpayer money into local financial institutions to rescue them from bankruptcy when the financial crisis erupted in late 1997.
Meanwhile, the watchdog said the country had retrieved 2.05 trillion won, or 33 percent, of a total of 6.19 trillion won pumped in to stave off market instability in the aftermath of the 2008 global credit crunch.
South Korea manages two tranches of public funds. The latter was created in 2009 in a bid to bolster the health of the local finance sector by helping to buy soured loans and assets of bankrupt firms. (Yonhap)