On December 5, 1997, Stanley Fischer, First Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, gave a press conference on the IMF aid package to South Korea.

The beginning of the financial crisis in South Korea can be traced to the collapse of Hanbo Steel Corp., the first in a string of large corporate failures in South Korea. This was followed by the decline in the value of the Korean won against the dollar in October 1997, which persisted until November when the Central Bank of Korea stopped intervening to support the won. The continued decline in won forced the Korean government to seek financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). On December 3, the IMF announced a $55 billion aid package for South Korea.