Lee Changyong, "I thought it was a deepfake to declare an emergency martial law."

Lee Chang-yong, governor of the Bank of Korea, said on the 3rd, "At first, I thought it was a deepfake" after seeing President Yoon Suk Yeol's statement declaring an emergency martial law.

"I thought the station was hacked," Lee said in a recently reported interview with the British weekly The Economist.

"There is a mechanism by which economic issues are handled regardless of political issues," he said, explaining that the aftermath of the emergency martial law will not have a significant impact on the economy.

"Given Korea's strong market fundamentals and mature democracy, we believe politics and economy can be separated," Lee told Bloomberg TV earlier.

The economist said that even after the emergency martial law crisis, meetings on macroeconomic and financial issues have been held steadily, and daily life in Korea has continued without a hitch.

But he noted that prolonged political uncertainty would make it difficult to solve long-term economic problems.