MSCI has once again declined to elevate South Korea to developed country status, keeping the East Asian nation with a GDP per capita higher than New Zeland classified as an emerging market.

The official line is that South Korea hasn’t made the won fully convertible and its market data infrastructure is “anti-competitive”

South Korea is the largest holding of several emerging market ETFs, but – market data competition aside – its economy behaves much more like those of developed nations.