MSCI says its market-classification framework evaluates markets by economic development, size and liquidity, and market accessibility. Its market-accessibility category is meant to reflect international institutional investors' experience of accessing and transacting in a market, including practical frictions that can persist even in large, liquid economies.
That is why South Korea's latest policy signals matter for index classification. The Ministry of Finance and Economy said after a 10 June expanded macroeconomic, fiscal and financial meeting that first-quarter nominal GDP rose 17.1% from a year earlier, the fastest pace since the third quarter of 1995, and that May exports rose 53.2% to a record high, supported by semiconductor earnings.
Those figures help explain why local assets are drawing attention, but they do not by themselves answer MSCI's accessibility questions. The ministry said after a 7 June emergency market meeting that authorities would examine offshore non-deliverable forward transactions, encourage more activity to move to Korea's onshore foreign-exchange market, and inspect suspected speculative activity after won volatility.
The reform agenda has a longer track. In May, the ministry said 24-hour foreign-exchange market trading and offshore Korean won settlement were intended to improve global investors' accessibility and convenience in Korea's foreign-exchange and capital markets. It said 24-hour trading was planned for July and the offshore settlement system for January next year.
The counter-perspective is that markets need to see reforms work, not only hear that they have been announced. The Korea Times reported that analysts remained cautious about a near-term MSCI upgrade because the index provider tends to focus on how reform measures operate in practice. That point aligns with MSCI's framework, which uses investor experience as part of the accessibility assessment.
Retail participation adds another layer. Al Jazeera reported, citing Korea Securities Depository data, that South Koreans owning stocks rose from about 6mn in 2019 to more than 14.5mn at the end of 2025. It also reported, citing the Korea Financial Investment Association, that active stock-trading accounts reached 105.22mn in May, up 6.93mn from the end of last year.