S. Korea recoups 62.9% of bailout funds

The government has recouped 62.9 percent of the public funds it spent to bail out troubled financial firms during the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the financial regulator said Wednesday.

The government has retrieved 106.1 trillion won ($100.7 billion) in public funds as of the end of September, according to the Financial Services Commission (FSC).

The September recovery rate is a tad higher than the previous tally of 62.8 percent at the end of June, and marks a 7.5 percent gain from the end of 2008, the FSC said.

In the July-September period, it recouped 167 billion won.

The government has poured a total of 168.7 trillion won in taxpayers' money into local financial institutions since 1997 to rescue them from bankruptcy.

The regulator, meanwhile, said the government has recovered 4.58 trillion won, or 74.4 percent, of the 6.17 trillion won pumped into the financial system to stave off market instability in the aftermath of the global credit crunch in 2008. In the third quarter, the government retrieved 77.8 billion won.

South Korea manages two tranches of public funds. The newest, created in 2009, aims to bolster the health of the local financial sector through purchases of soured loans and assets of bankrupt firms. (Yonhap News)