South Korea managed a relatively quick recovery from the global financial crisis — with a 0.2 percent gross domestic product increase in 2009 — but the country will need to invest in new engines of the economy to secure future growth, veteran journalists from the country told a recent symposium in Tokyo.
Unlike during the 1997 Asian crisis, major South Korean firms avoided massive job cuts in their response to the latest global turbulence, a factor that could contribute to improving the once troublesome labor-management relations in the country, they said.
Journalists from South Korea's major dailies took part in the symposium organized March 19 by Keizai Koho Center under the theme, "Competitiveness of Japan and South Korea in the global economy." Ichiro Ue, a senior writer at the Yomiuri Shimbun, served as the moderator.