(Jan 21): South Korea isn’t delaying the first planned US$20 billion (RM80.95 billion) tranche of its US investment commitments as part of a trade deal framework, Finance Minister Koo Yun Cheol said, adding that the time-consuming process to select projects is underway even though it’s unlikely to be completed in the first half of the year. “It’s not that we are delaying US$20 billion investment,” Koo told Bloomberg News in a phone interview on Thursday. Koo said Thursday that the promised money would not be spent all at once given the usual procedures to select and implement projects. “It’s about 28 to 30 trillion won, and even for domestic projects, it’s hard to spend that much all at once,” the minister said. President Lee Jae Myung said on Wednesday the country’s beleaguered currency may strengthen and stabilise around the 1,400-per-dollar level within the next two months, adding that the weakness was not unique to South Korea.

Source: The Edge Markets January 22, 2026 05:29 UTC