ugh some of Korea's major corporations have been forced to near bankruptcy.
A major area of concern for Korea is external debt. Total gross external liabilities for Korea at the end of 1988 approximated US$43 billion. Of that amount, 57.2 percent represented public debt. Increasing central government deficits, together with the external debt problem, indicate that the country will continue to rely heavily on high taxation in the 1996-1999 time period, and that any faltering in the level of exports will likely prove to be devastating.
Korea's external debt places heavy pressure on the country's economic managers to retain the emphasis on exports. In the face of rising domestic expectations, this task becomes more difficult politically. Export emphasis, however, is an integral component of the country's industrial policy. This industrial policy must be continually refined, as some of the major industrial countries targeted for Korea's exports adjust, at least to some extent, to a so-called post-industrial environment.
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