Manager at Seoul fund pessimistic about country's shipping industry

Singapore

ALFRED Kim, the man in charge of helping salvage South Korea's shipping industry at the state-funded bad loan company, does not sound too optimistic.

"Nobody knows what the future is like as the shipping industry is still facing a tough time now," he said. Mr Kim is project manager at Korea Asset Management Corp (Kamco), based in Busan. "There's large supply of ships, the Chinese economy isn't doing very good. Right now, it's very difficult to secure loans from the credit market, and banks don't want to invest more of their money on the shipping side."