Credit: Yonhap News.
Yoon Suk-yeol 윤석열’s self-coup attempt on December 3 may have been the killing blow for an already ailing South Korean economy. On December 20, the USD-KRW exchange rate soared to KRW 1,450 for USD 1, a level unseen since 2009, in the aftermath of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, as international investors exited the South Korean market.
The uncertainty is putting South Korea’s largest businesses in a bind. According to a survey of South Korea’s 30 large chaebol groups by the Korea Economic Daily 한국경제신문, 33.3% said they have not finalized business plans for 2025, while 26.7% said they were significantly revising plans for next year. A staggering 90% of respondents predicted that 2025 will be a worse year than 2024, with 13.3% saying they expect the worst year since the 1997 East Asian Financial Crisis.
