South Korea has paid back its debt to the IMF, cleaned up most of its bad loans and emerged as one of Asia's best-performing economies, with forecast growth of 6 per cent this year.
South Korea's return to health is in contrast to Asia's other fallen "tiger economies", such as Indonesia and Thailand, which have struggled to recover from the region's 1997 crisis.
Its aggressive tackling of non-performing loans - reduced from 13 per cent of all loans in 1998 to 2.4 per cent this year - is also cited as an example to debt-laden Japan, which has failed to take similar action. Paul Gruenwald, IMF representative in Seoul, says South Korea is the fund's "star pupil" in Asia.
However, fresh clouds are gathering over the economy, with some analysts warning that the country could be heading for a second crisis.
