With the U.S recovery looking a bit iffy after last week's unemployment report, Japan and Britain battling huge budget problems and Europe in trouble because of the Greek debt crisis, investors have quite naturally shifted their focus to Asia.
But even there the pickings seem a bit slim. Asian stalwarts China and India show signs of overheating (India more so than China). Taiwan and Singapore - both excellent markets - seem pretty fully valued right now.
That leaves us with one Asian market whose economy is enjoying well-balanced growth, whose government is a model of competence and efficiency and whose stock market is surprisingly reasonably valued.
I'm talking about South Korea.
In any conversation about a Korea investing strategy, one question always comes up: What about the potential for war with North Korea? Well, to say the least, the odds of such a confrontation are relatively low. Given that, some investors may be able to look to Korea for as much as 20% of their portfolio, if other conditions are right.
At the moment, economic conditions in Korea are about the best in the world. The country suffered a sharp - but temporary - recession in late 2008. However, the new center-right government of Lee Myung-bak did not panic, nor did it engage in more than minor stimulus. Instead, it allowed the won exchange rate to depreciate, making life very difficult for banks and other large foreign borrowers, but producing a rapid industrial recovery. In the first quarter of 2010, South Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) was 8.2% above the first quarter of 2009, while April industrial production was up 19.9% from the year before.
There are no signs of overheating: Consumer prices in May were 2.7% above the previous year, most of which was due to price increases in imported oil and other commodities.
A panel of forecasters for The Economist expects South Korea's growth to slow - to 5.9% in 2010 and 4.2% in 2011. But those projections appear somewhat conservative to me. The balance of payments is positive, with a surplus of 3.1% of GDP, while the budget deficit is small at 2.1% of GDP and will presumably decline as expansion continues.
Just yesterday, in fact, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) boosted its growth forecast for South Korea for this year to 5.75%, a big jump from its earlier forecast of 4.5%, Radio Korea International reported. The IMF cited government-led stimulus measures and improving global trade conditions as the basis for its upgrade. It expects the Korean economy to grow 5.0% in 2011.
Both of these forecast upgrades were made more than a week after I made my projections.
Korea's success is easily explained. The country is rich, but retains a significant wage/cost advantage over Japan. But Korea's government sector remains small: Public spending was only 27% of GDP in 2009, by far the lowest in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) group of mainly rich economies. With less government, and a smaller public debt load, there is more room for the private sector to flourish. [As the accompanying graphic demonstrates, countries that amass high levels of debt experience measurable declines in their economic growth rates. Korea has avoided this miscue.]
Lee's government is strongly pro-business, moderately free-market and safely in power until 2013. Recent local elections last week were mildly adverse to the government, but still would have given it a small majority if repeated at the national level (the ruling Grand National Party retained the mayorship of Seoul, for example).
My only complaint is that Lee, himself, tends to favor the kind of giant infrastructure projects that have helped drive Japan towards bankruptcy during its 20-year recession. However, he did not indulge this urge significantly during the recession, when a strict Keynesian might have done so. So I can only conclude that he appears to have it under control.
The Korean economy is well-balanced and enjoying strong growth. The country also enjoys important - and even dominant - positions in a number of major global industries, including transportation, nuclear power, consumer electronics and biotechnology. And it has set goals to become a major player in several other areas, including so-called "smart-grid" technology and robotics (Korea intends to become the world's No. 3 player in robotics - up from roughly No. 13 now - within the next few years, according to a recent Radio Korea International documentary. It has a national strategy and the financing and R&D programs in place to pursue that goal, Korea's national shortwave-radio broadcaster reported in that documentary).
For global investors, some Korean exposure is an essential part of the portfolio.
Korea's stock market is currently very reasonably valued, trading at only about 14.5 times earnings. However, Korean companies mostly eliminated their dividends in the crisis of 2008/2009 and haven't restored them, so dividend investors will find little to attract them here.
Since I don't trust corporate managements in companies without dividends not to go on mad expansion schemes or to attempt to enrich themselves at shareholder expense, this is typically a fairly major negative. But given Korea's excellent growth prospects - especially when compared to other global investment opportunities available at the moment - Korea remains a top-tier investment opportunity. Investors just need to be selective.
Shares with full American-Depository Receipt (ADR) listings that you might consider, include the following (my own ratings are included):
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