South Korea has recovered up to 55.6 percent of its funds spent in the wake of the 1997-98 Asian financial Crisis to rescue financial companies from bankruptcy, the financial watchdog said on Thursday.

South Korea, having spent 168.6 trillion won (US$133.2 billion) in public funds for the troubled financial firms, has retrieved 93.8 billion won as of end-May, the nation's Financial Services Commission (FSC) said.

The watchdog said the recovery rate rose 0.2 percentage points from 55.4 percent as of the end of last year.

(Xinhua News Agency July 16, 2009)