South Korea to talk to IMF in bid to avoid currency-manipulator label

SEJONG (Reuters) - South Korea's finance minister on Tuesday said the government would talk to the International Monetary Fund as part of its efforts to avoid being labelled a currency manipulator by the United States.

"We do not expect the U.S. to label (South Korea) as a currency manipulator, but we cannot be certain for now," Kim Dong-yeon said in a press conference in Sejong.

"We will discuss (our currency policies) with the IMF. We are doing so using various channels, and we will try our best to make sure we don't get the currency-manipulator label."

South Korea, along with China, avoided the currency-manipulator label in the semi-annual U.S. Treasury currency report, but was kept on a currency "monitoring list".

Kim also said while the government has not decided whether the economy needs a supplementary budget or not, any spending plan needs to be carried out swiftly once the decision has been made to boost growth and add jobs fast.

(Reporting by Shin-hyung Lee, Cynthia Kim)