China's pullback from stimulus efforts, which were geared toward grappling with the financial distress, is likely to affect Korea in deciding when to employ its own exit strategy, The Korea Times reported. China, Korea's largest trading partner, began to withdraw its expansionary policies this week with its central bank raising lenders' reserve requirement ratio by 50 basis points.

Troubled Ssangyong Motor avoided bankruptcy after a court approved its self-rescue plan despite opposition from overseas creditors. The ruling enables the cash-strapped automaker to get additional financing from investors, and take a series of steps to eventually stand on its own feet. Its ongoing negotiations for a possible sale is also expected to gain momentum. A Ssangyong spokesman told The Korea Times that it would select a candidate to take over the company by January and complete the deal by September.

GM Daewoo, which accounts for about a quarter of GM's global auto production, also represents one of the few remaining areas needing restructuring after the U.S. automaker exited bankruptcy in July with $50 billion in U.S. government funding. GM Chief Executive Fritz Henderson is in Seoul this week to discuss options for restructuring GM Daewoo with the South Korean government -- an increasingly important asset for the automaker.

The World Trade Organisation is expected to rule on Friday that billions of dollars in European government subsidies for Airbus aircraft are illegal, the Financial Times reported. That would hand victory to the US and Boeing, in the first round of a WTO dogfight between the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturers. The preliminary ruling, is likely to spur Washington to launch a WTO challenge to further government loans for Airbus to develop its new €11 billion ($16 billion, £10 billion) A350 extra wide-bodied airliner which will compete with Boeing’s long-delayed 787 Dreamliner.

Creditors filed for the liquidation of the troubled Ssangyong Motor with the Seoul Central District Court, Wednesday, a desperate move to put pressure on occupiers of a building at the company's plant amid growing fears that the occupation will soon threaten the survival of not only the automaker but also its suppliers, The Korea Times reported. Choi Myung-hoon, the spokesman for the creditors, said, "With the standoff continuing, more than 1,900 part suppliers are exposed to bankruptcy.

In pursuit of middle-class prosperity, South Koreans have looted their household savings like no other people on Earth, The Washington Post reported. They have collectively binged on private schools and fancy cars, language camps and new apartments, foreign travel and designer shoes. The consequences of South Korea's collapsed savings rate are beginning to register in the country's slowing rate of growth, economists said. For nearly 40 years, growth galloped along at between 6 and 8 percent, as banks were flush with household savings that fueled business investment and research.

Rio Tinto Group iron ore executive Stern Hu was detained in China on suspicion of espionage and stealing state secrets, Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said. Hu, an Australian and head of London-based Rio’s iron ore operations in China, was detained on July 5, Smith said in Perth today. The executive hasn’t been charged and there wasn’t any indication allegations were business-related, he said, declining to comment on how relations with China would be affected. Three other Rio workers, all Chinese nationals, are also being held.

Tales of the downwardly mobile have become common during the current financial crisis, and South Korea has had more than its share since the global downturn hammered this once fast-growing export economy, The New York Times reported. But they often have a distinctly Korean twist, with former white-collar workers going into more physically demanding work or traditional kinds of manual labor that are relatively well paid here — from farming and fishing to the professional back-scrubbers who clean patrons at the nation’s numerous public bathhouses.

Ailing carmaker Ssangyong Motor on Monday it will proceed with restructuring plans and push for an early sales of idle assets to secure enough funds to operate factories, launch new cars and boost liquidity, The Chosun Ilbo reported. Ssangyong will seek an additional mortgage of W330 billion (US$1=W1,251) from the Korea Development Bank and relocate the Seoul Office from Posteel Tower to the Poongrim Building nearby to save over W1 billion in rent a year.

With the economic slump prolonged, more and more firms and individuals have become unable to service their debt payments and are filing for court receivership or debt rescheduling programs, The Korea Times reported. According to the Seoul Central District Court, a total of 72 local firms filed for court receivership in the first three months of this year, up 243 percent from the same period last year. The number of filings reached 21 each in the first and second quarter of last year.