Why Is South Korea Worried About the Weak Won?

South Korean authorities are making an increasingly frantic effort to stop the won currency sliding to lows not seen since early 2009 during the depths of the global financial crisis.

To support the won, officials have pressured the country’s pension funds to sell dollars and nudged its vast “chaebol” conglomerates to convert more of their US earnings back into local currency. The measures have failed for now to arrest the decline.