Financier Soros in Seoul for meeting with Kim

International financier George Soros arrived in South Korea on Saturday evening for a meeting with President-elect Kim Dae-jung, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported.

Soros said he had come for a private meeting with Kim.

"The billionaire currency speculator warned that South Korea may go through harder times yet but said that he takes a rosy prospect on a long-term basis," the agency said.

A Kim aide said Soros sent Kim a message of congratulations when he won the presidential election last year "and expressed a will to visit Korea to help the country break through (the) financial crisis." Soros will meet Kim on Sunday and leave on Monday.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.