South Korea's top central banker said Monday that the country may strengthen measures to smooth out cross-border capital movements if needed, but potential steps would not take on features of capital control.South Korea has undergone excessive capital outflows whenever a financial crisis has cropped up. Since 2010, Korea has implemented a set of the so-called macro-prudential measures to ease volatile cross-border capital flows including bank levies and tighter regulations on banks' FX derivativ

Nov. 12, 2012

South Korean stocks edged down 0.19 percent Monday as investors sat on the sidelines on renewed fiscal woes in the United States, analysts said. The local currency lost against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index dipped 3.54 points to close at 1,900.87. Trading volume was moderate at 468.6 million shares worth 3.73 trillion won ($3.4 billion) with losers outpacing gainers 436 to 387.“The fiscal cliff issue that recently dampened investors sentiment just after the U.S.

Nov. 12, 2012

South Korean consumer electronics giant LG Electronics Inc. has begun a voluntary recall of about 161,000 electric ranges in the United States, an official said Sunday.The move comes after the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent federal agency, posted the recall on its website last week, citing burn and fire hazards to consumers.The U.S. product safety regulators said that LG Electronics has received 80 reports of incidents involving burners failing to turn off or the tempera

Nov. 12, 2012

Woongjin Coway Co., South Korea’s top water purifier maker, said Monday the process of selling a major stake in the company to local private equity fund MBK Partners Ltd. has resumed after a court approved the sale that is set to be concluded in January.In August, Woongjin Holdings, the parent company of Woongjin Coway, signed a deal with MBK Partners to sell its 30.9 percent stake in the purifier unit to the private equity fund for 1.2 trillion won ($1 billion), to help improve its financial he

Nov. 12, 2012

A total of seven out of 10 economic indicators were found to be manifesting slower growth as of October, with two of the indices on the decline, according to government figures. The seven included the business survey index and consumer survey index ― critical measures of future expectations that companies and consumers harbor toward future economic and business conditions.Indices measuring production and construction completed were shown to be sliding, with the only indicator on the rise being t

Nov. 12, 2012

A free trade agreement with Turkey will not likely have significant benefits for the South Korean economy as its impact on growth, tax reduction and job creation might remain marginal, a report showed Monday.South Korea and Turkey had held four rounds of FTA negotiations since April 2010 and both announced the conclusion of their talks on trade of products in March.The two countries plan to conclude negotiations on the service and investment sectors as well within a year of implementing their de

Nov. 12, 2012

A new European Chamber of Commerce will be established in Korea soon as the Korean government approves it within this week.“The Ministry of Knowledge Economy plans to give the final approval for the establishment of a new European Chamber of Commerce in Korea by the end of the week,” a ministry spokesperson told The Korea Herald on Monday. The new organization for European companies operating in Korea will replace the European Union Chamber of Commerce in Korea, or EUCCK, which shut down in Sept

IndustryNov. 12, 2012

Microsoft unveiled speech translation technology that turns English into Chinese instantly.The software preserves intonation and cadence so the translated speech still sounds like the original speaker. Microsoft chief researcher officer Rick Rashid demonstrated details of the technology in a blog post following a presentation he gave in Tianjin, China, in late October.He said that the demo is the result of 60 years of work and some breakthroughs in the last two years. These breakthroughs, he sai

TechnologyNov. 12, 2012

A group of Harvard students say they aren‘t sure what happened to the first hamburger to be launched into space, but they suspect a squirrel made off with it.The burger was carried into space last month aboard a helium balloon and was missing from its container when the balloon fell back to earth and landed in a tall tree in Massachusetts.Renzo Lucioni told The Boston Globe he and his colleagues had to hire a tree trimmer to go up the 100-foot tree and retrieve the deflated balloon, but the sand

TechnologyNov. 12, 2012

South Korean stocks opened lower on Monday as foreign investors and institutions offloaded local shares, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) declined 5.27 points, or 0.28 percent, to 1899.14 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Big-cap tech firms led the decline, with market bellwether Samsung Electronics falling 0.45 percent and flat panel giant LG Display sliding 1.13 percent. Top chipmaker SK hynix moved down 1.57 percent.Logistics shares also traded in negativ

Nov. 12, 2012

Buoyed by surging popularity overseas of K-pop, the nation’s trade balance in the culture and entertainment service sector was positive for the first time ever, data showed Sunday.The trade surplus of cultural and entertainment products, including movies, music, TV programs and games, reached $37.3 million over the first three quarters this year, according to financial information provider FnGuide and the Bank of Korea. The turnaround is noteworthy as the balance had been in the red in the indus

IndustryNov. 11, 2012