Chaebol of South Korea's top conglomerates has decreased from 2012 to 2015. Not only did their profits stop increasing, but certain chaebols such as LG, have been making losses and losing talent. Some chaebol are one large corporation while others have broken up into loosely connected groups of separate companies sharing a common name. Even in the latter case, each is almost always owned, controlled, or managed by the same family group. South Korea's chaebol are often compared with Japan's keiretsu business groupings, the successors to the pre-war zaibatsu. While the "chaebol" are similar to the "zaibatsu" (the words are cognates,
Trade policy of South Korea of luxury goods increased including high tech and electronics products which reduced exports which resulted in Korea's trade deficit and current account deficit. In mid-1990's Korea reduced tariff rates and import restriction on autos, high tech products and financial services. South Korea and the Asian Financial Crisis Korean Banks and Chaebol borrowed heavily from the foreign banks on a short-term basis. The money was taken to fund investment in the industries at the encouragement of the government. The heavy reliance on the short term foreign loans led the Korean economy to suffer from the currency crisis, as foreign reserves were