The government has recouped 63.5 percent of the public funds it spent to bail out troubled financial firms during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis, the financial regulator said Thursday.

The government has retrieved 107 trillion won ($104 billion) of 168.7 trillion won used from the public funds as of the end of March, according to the Financial Services Commission.

The recovery rate was slightly up from 63.4 percent at the end of 2013, it added.

The massive amounts of public funds were poured into local financial institutions to rescue them from bankruptcy when the financial crisis erupted in late 1997.

The regulator said the government also recovered 4.8 trillion won, or 78.2 percent, of the 6.17 trillion won in taxpayers’ money pumped in to stabilize the financial system, which was hit by the 2008 global financial crisis.

South Korea manages two tranches of public funds. The newest, created in 2009, aims to bolster the health of the local financial sector through purchases of soured loans and assets of bankrupt firms. (Yonhap)