The Bank of Korea (BOK) is going global. With one eye on the concerns of South Korea’s domestic economy, the BOK governor Choongsoo Kim is also focused on reaching out to the international community. He is active at a regional level and as well as engaging with foreign institutions, and he aims to bring global practices home to the central bank, in a bid to make the BOK “global”.
Mr Kim explains that when the global financial crisis broke out, the world was divided into two groups: advanced and emerging economies. South Korea, he says, lies on the threshold, and although the International Monetary Fund (IMF) classifies the country as 'advanced industrialised', he considers it to be situated somewhere between the two categories. “I don’t call Korea an advanced economy yet, but we are moving from the state of emerging to the state of an advanced economy,” says Mr Kim.