As officials from South Korea's Finance Ministry and central bank rushed into a strategy meeting to consider the implications of North Korea's latest nuclear test, early indications suggest that Asia's fourth-largest economy is likely to shrug it off.
While the currency slid to a three-month low and stocks dropped as much as 1 percent on Wednesday in Seoul, the immediate reaction from the Bank of Korea was calm and assured. Foreign exchange official Park Jun-seo said the Bank of Korea stood ready to perform smoothing operations if trading became volatile and that risks from China's slowdown and emerging markets remain the real issues, rather than events in North Korea.
The South Korean economy, which is more than 40 times larger than that of its northern neighbor, has lived in the shadow of a nuclear threat for more than a decade and continued to thrive.