SEOUL, July 21 (Yonhap) -- The government has retrieved 73 percent of the public funds used to bail out troubled financial firms since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the financial regulator said Tuesday.

As of end-June, the government has been paid back 72.9 percent, or 123 trillion won (US$83.3 billion), of the 168.7 trillion won in bailout funds, according to the Financial Services Commission (FSC).

The reading marks a 0.3 percentage-point rise from three months earlier, the data showed.

During the second quarter of the year alone, some 590 billion won was recovered.

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