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Lee Baek-soon(pictured), CEO and President of Shinhan Bank, predicted in an interview with AJ News Monday that the economy might witness its rebound at around the latter half of the year 2010.
His perspective on the economy is somewhat more pessimistic than general analysts saying that the economy would go up either in the second half of this year or in the first half of next year.
“The recovery would be insignificant for certain period of time given that the uncertainty is still lingering around and exports does not seem to be improved any time soon,” he said.
Lee explained that government spending was the main reason for the recent economic indexes to show some recovery.
“However, the upswing mood is highly likely to lose its momentum due to the lack of funding from the administration and strong local currency.
After taking into account the high reliance on exports, the Korean economy would enter into the recovery stage in 2010 when the customer spending is expected to rise in the advanced economies including U.S., Japan, and Europe,” said the CEO.
However, he anticipated that Shinhan Bank would see higher profitability and stronger balance sheet for the rest of this year.
Lee said that the net interest margin(NIM) would increase due to the contraction in non-performing loan(NPL) and fund-raising.
“The size of overdue loans skyrocketed during the second half of last year, but the increment starts shrinking since the beginning of this year”, he added.
Shinhan Bank has set the target to manage the fiscal health and maintain overdue loans at the similar level to the one at the end of last year by implementing the restructuring plan and pre-screening process to spot the bad loans, he asserted.
In relation to the policy of ‘Low Carbon and Green Growth’, he highlighted that the bank would support the eco-friendly companies by having strategic partnership and by expanding the funding for them.
By Lee, Jaeho
아주경제= 이재호 기자 gggtttppp@ajnews.co.kr
Translated and Edited by Shin, Kirim
아주경제= 신기림 기자 kirimi99@ajnews.co.kr
(아주경제=ajnews.co.kr) 무단전재 배포금지
