Lucy Williamson: What Eurozone Countries Can Learn from South Korea
Lucy Williamson is the BBC's Seoul correspondent.
It's hard to believe that just 15 years ago South Korea teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
Seoul's commercial district today is alive and busy, but in 1997, its businesses were vastly indebted, its banks were over-leveraged and its financial system was on the verge of collapse.
The Asian Financial Crisis had hit and South Korea was determined to find a way out, fast. And it was successful.
Firstly, it obtained a massive $58bn (£37bn) loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and then it swallowed the tough conditions attached.
Long-time Seoul resident, Mike Breen, who was working here as a journalist during the crisis, says many Koreans today are astonished that the Greeks when faced with a similar situation are "giving two fingers to their saviours".
"The Koreans took on conditions that they didn't like," he says. "So much so that they called it the 'IMF Crisis', as if it was caused by the IMF.
"But within three years, they turned it around - quicker than any other country - and then they paid [the loan] back."..