Massive restructuring of Korean shipping and shipbuilders in the offing

Ouch. This is going to be really painful for the people of Korea, but there would appear to be no other way out of the current impasse of massive shipping overcapacity than a complete root and branch restructure of its shipping and shipbuilding industries. The Korea Herald today reports that the country’s Financial Services Commission has called for a “three-track” system of restructuring to be undertaken in collaboration with the Korea Development Bank and Korea Import-Export Bank, which together hold around $10bn of loans to shipping lines Hyundai and Hanjin, and Korea’s three shipbuilders, Hyundai, Samsung and Daewoo. “Massive job losses are inevitable,” the report says.