Hardly a day goes by without one of South Korea's myriad newspapers declaring that the country is on the way to becoming the "hub" of north-east Asia - a logistics hub based around the southern port of Busan, a manufacturing hub centred in the North Korean industrial park at Kaesong, or a financial hub in Seoul.

South Korean officials never tire of detailing ways the country will become pivotal to the region. But to foreigners doing business there, such ambitions seem laughable, even hypocritical.