Korea Growth ‘Crisis’ Spurs Talks

SEOUL — South Korean officials Wednesday held emergency talks on labor unrest, inflation and international trade pressures that have put the brakes on surging economic growth.

One official said South Korea faced an “economic crisis” that threatened growth targets.

The government hastily called the meeting after a dramatic export slowdown hit South Korea with two consecutive monthly trade deficits.

The April shortfall in customs-cleared trade was $23 million, after a $5-million deficit in March.

For the first four months of 1989, Seoul’s customs-cleared trade surplus fell to just $68 million, compared to $1.77 billion for the year-ago period.

Representatives of the finance, trade, construction, labor and economic planning ministries, as well as the Bank of Korea, the Federation of Korean Trade Unions and other groups, met to seek solutions to the nation’s economic woes.

“We face serious internal and external problems,” the economic planning official said.

“Economic growth is being undermined by unabated labor flare-ups and inflation at home while trade pressure from the United States is exacerbating our already sluggish export performance,” the official said.

“We expected the economy to cool off after double-digit growth in the last three years, but all indicators point to a dramatic slowdown due to negative factors.”