Editorial: Korean rescue is only a start
Winning over the rest of the world's banks to the deal will be a complex and possibly tense process. No sooner was the ink dry on the agreement than Rhodes took a plane for the World Economic Forum at Davos. While other delegates gathered pearls of wisdom from Bill Gates and Hillary Clinton, Rhodes had a more prosaic task: quietly, determinedly seeking out bank chairmen and enlisting their support for the deal. On one panel, Rhodes sat beside Governor You, this time happy that he did not keep his mouth shut. You emphasized the support of president-elect Kim for the deal and stressed Korea's determination to implement tough programmes of reform. Marketing the deal had begun and the initial response in Davos, for example from some chairmen of large Japanese banks not among the group of 13, was to welcome the deal.
Ensuring that welcome is widespread will be no simple or straightforward matter. A formal roadshow, with a Korean delegation making presentations to banks in major financial centres around the world, was scheduled to start towards the end of the last week in February and to run through the first week in March.