Officials in South Korea and Japan are playing down speculation that the ending of a bilateral $10 billion currency swap agreement has more to do with political tensions between Seoul and Tokyo than with economics. The 2001 agreement expired on February 23. The pact allowed each country to use, in an emergency, its own currency to get U.S. dollars from the other at a predetermined rate. Since she came to power two years ago, South Korea’s president, Park Geun-hye, has not had a bilateral meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, apparently because of territorial disputes and other disagreements.
