MSCI maintains South Korea's emerging market status in the latest evaluation.

MSCI has decided to keep South Korea in its Emerging Markets Index, ruling out the launch of a formal review process that could eventually upgrade the country's $5 trillion stock market to developed market status. The New York-based index provider said in a statement released on Tuesday that South Korea will continue to be classified as an emerging market in the annual market classification assessment. The statement acknowledged that South Korean authorities have announced measures to improve long-standing market accessibility issues, but pointed out that key structural bottlenecks have not been fully resolved. MSCI stated, "During extended foreign exchange trading hours, domestic liquidity in the South Korean won remains significantly inadequate to support standards of close execution comparable to developed markets." This limits the flexibility of forex operations for index replicators and other institutions. This highly-anticipated decision comes after MSCI noted last week that market accessibility issues still exist, dampening expectations that South Korea's top-performing stock market this year might be on track to join the ranks of developed markets, which can offer higher accessibility, liquidity, and operational efficiency for global investors.