Korean Challenge

Korea's long-term challenges are different from other parts of Asia and they include raising productivity in the service sector, a high-ranking official of the International Monetary Fund said recently.

Korea should increase productivity in the service sector and needs structural reforms to create a smoother relocation of resources and reforms in the labour market and small- and medium-sized enterprises, Anoop Singh, director of the Asia Pacific department of the IMF, said in a conference in Seoul.

Korea has a rebalancing challenge ... The nation's dependency on exports has gone up in recent years, he said.

Singh added that policy stimulus in Asia generally needs to be maintained until the recovery is ensured.