Hello and Anjongashmika. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm David Kahn,

and today it's part two in our three-part series looking at the country with the world's fastest shrinking population, South Korea.

Despite a slight uptick in fertility rate last year, South Korea continues to record the lowest fertility rate in global history. And as a result,

depopulation at a rate that has drawn comparison to the catastrophic black death that ravaged

Europe in the 14th century. We are facing a crisis of low birth rate and we can't afford to just

sit here doing nothing.

And depopulation means fewer people working and therefore slower economic growth.

This has led the South Korean administration to declare a national emergency.

We must now wage a national all-out effort to transform the bleak future into one full of hope.

Today, I declare a national population emergency

and will activate a nationwide comprehensive response system

until the day we overcome the low birth rate issue.

So what can be done?

In the first program, we heard about one solution, boosting the birth rate.

But now, the government wants to

increase immigration as well. One potential solution to address the rapid decline in working

age population is to utilize foreign labor. But that's not been an easy sell.

Korea is not really ready for the migrants before. So is immigration the answer to stalling or even reversing the country's rapid level of

depopulation?

And how would that work?

We'll find out in today's episode of Business Daily.

O'San in Gengido, South Korea is a city with amongst the highest percentage of foreign workers in the country, mainly from other parts of Asia.

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