[Economist] Second time around

한국에 다시 외환위기가 올 것인가? 외국 애널리스트들은 그렇다고 생각하고, 한국정부는 그렇지 않다고 주장한다. 누가 맞는 말을 하는건가?

정부는 1300억달러를 시장에 풀겠다고 발표했다. 1000억달러는 지급보증을 위해 쓸 것이다. 나머지 300억 달러는 은행에 지원할 돈이다. 정부는 이틀전에 92억달러를 건설회사에 지원하겠다고 말했다. 정부관료들은 에너지절약, 국산품사용, 해외여행자제 등 국민들의 애국심에 호소하고 있다.

이명박 대통령은 1997년과 지금은 다르다고 주장한다. 경제적 기초가 튼튼해 졌다는 것이다. 은행의 자기자본비율은 높아졌고, 대기업들의 부채비율은 낮아졌으며 외환보유액은 세계 6위에 이를 정도다. 외환위기 속에서도 한국은 이번년도에는 4%정도를 내년에는 2.5-3.5%대로 성장할 것이다. 이는 이명박 대통령이 약속한 7%에는 못 미치지만 위기상황에서는 긍적적인 전망치이다.

이렇게 긍적적인 전망치가 나오는 이유는 조선업이 호황을 누리고 있기 때문이다. 그러나 조선업은 금융압박의 원인이기도 하다. 조선업계에 외채비율이 급속히 늘어났기 때문이다. 이 중 10분의 1은 선수금이다. 또한 절반정도는 헷지거래 때문에 발생한 외환평가손실액이다.

한국이 금융위기를 겪고 있는 것처럼 보이는 것은 이러한 미실현 손실때문이다. 무디스는 한국의 은행들이 자산 중 12%정도를 외채에 의존하고 있는 것으로 추정했다. 은행간 거래는 국제금융위기 때문에 침체되어 있다. S&P는 한국의 은행들 중 7개를 위험대상으로 설정하고 관찰하고 있다고 말했다.

원화는 외인들이 주식과 채권을 팔고 떠나면서 가치가 떨어졌다. 또한 연초 유가급등과 상품가격상승으로 경상수지적자가 발생했기 때문에 달러수요가 많았다. 정부가 내놓은 구제대책은 원화와 주가의 하락을 잠깐 동안만 막았을 뿐이다.

어떤 이들은 금융위기가 비껴나갈 것이라고 말하고 있다. 하지만 거래자들은 세계경제의 주변국가들에게 금융위기는 이제 시작일 뿐이라는 것을 알고 있다.

South Korea

Second time around
Oct 23rd 2008 SEOUL
From The Economist print edition

Shock, denial, anger and a massive bail-out for good measure

OF ALL the Asian countries worst ravaged by the regional financial turmoil of 1997-98, South Korea has come closest in recent weeks to seeing history repeat itself—not as farce, but as renewed financial tragedy. As its stockmarket has slid downhill and the currency, the won, has fallen by nearly 30% this year, the government has been telling all-comers that the economy is sound and the banks liquid and solvent. Its officials have blamed their troubles on the ignorant or malicious refusal of foreign analysts to believe them.

Yet on October 19th the government announced a $130 billion rescue for Asia’s fourth-largest economy. Of this, $100 billion is in the form of guarantees for foreign-currency debts. Another $30 billion—about one-eighth of the country’s foreign-exchange reserves—was to be available to banks suffering a drought of dollars. It followed this up two days later with a promise to spend 12 trillion won ($9.2 billion) to help the building industry—for example by refinancing debts and buying unsold houses. The president, Lee Myung-bak, described the overall economic situations as “more serious” than in 1997, because of the global sweep of the crisis. The government had already appealed to the grass-roots patriotism that helped South Korea through the late 1990s: cutting back on energy bills; buying local products; and surrendering any dollars left over from overseas jaunts.

Mr Lee and his officials, however, are quite right that the economy is on a much sounder footing than in 1997. Banks are better capitalised, big companies less indebted and reserves of foreign exchange bigger than all but five other countries’. The economy has been growing solidly for a decade. Even after the recent buffeting, analysts still expect GDP to grow by more than 4% this year, and by 2.5-3.5% in 2009. That is nowhere near the 7% growth President Lee promised at his inauguration in February, but in the current doom-laden climate it looks positively robust.

One reason for this relative optimism is the shipbuilding industry, one of South Korea’s great success stories. Yet it is also one cause of the financial stresses. There has been a sharp rise in foreign debt. More than one-tenth of the rise is in down-payments for ships still being built, which appear in the accounts as trade credits. And around half of the increase in short-term debt comes from banks hedging their exposure to purchases of shipbuilders’ dollar receivables in the forward market.

That helps explain the way in which the global credit crunch first made itself felt in South Korea—in a shortage of dollars for the banks. Moody’s, a credit-rating agency, estimates that South Korea’s banks rely on foreign sources for 12% of their funding. As inter-bank markets worldwide clammed up, they began to look vulnerable. Standard & Poor’s, another rating agency, this month put seven of them on a “watch-list”, because of the pressure they faced.

The won itself has been battered as foreign investors have fled Korean shares and bonds. Its decline also reflects the current account’s fall into deficit as the cost of South Korea’s oil and other commodity imports soared earlier this year. The government rescue stemmed the tumble in the won and the stockmarket only briefly. As elsewhere, financial catastrophe seemed to have been averted. But also as elsewhere, traders knew that the impact of the market turmoil on the rest of the economy was only beginning to be felt.