S. Korean currency, stocks most volatile in Asia

South Korean currency and stocks have been the worst performers among emerging markets in Asia this month amid concerns of a slow economic recovery and a set of negative external factors, market data showed Sunday.According to the data, the South Korean won tumbled 2.06 percent against the greenback over the past 17 days, the largest drop among the currencies of seven emerging markets in Asia.Malaysia came next with a 0.4 percent drop in the value of its currency against the dollar, followed by

Oct. 19, 2014

U.S. steelmakers demand antidumping action on Korean welded API line pipes

U.S. steelmakers called for tough antidumping action against South Korea welded API line pipes that could effectively block export of the products, a local traders association said Friday.According to the Korea International Trade Association, American Cast Iron Pipe Co. and seven other companies sued South Korean steelmakers such as Dongbu Steel, Dongyang Steel Pipe Co. and Hysco for unfairly undercutting prices and for receiving state subsidies.The U.S. companies also demanded action against l

Oct. 17, 2014

Jeju Island pushes for Singapore-style casino watchdog

Jeju Island is pushing to establish a strict Singapore-style casino watchdog and revise taxation on casinos to improve transparency of the gambling industry and boost the local economy, its governor said. Jeju Gov. Won Hee-ryong made the remarks during a parliamentary audit on Thursday as the southern resort island has seen a rapid surge of real estate investment and travelers from China over the past years on the back of accommodative visa programs.The provincial government has been preparing t

Oct. 17, 2014

N. Korea, China kick off annual trade fair

North Korea and China kicked off an annual trade exhibition on Thursday, with about 2,000 Chinese companies attending, organizers said. The five-day trade fair in the Chinese border city of Dandong, where more than 70 percent of bilateral trade between the two nations is conducted, suggests economic ties between Beijing and Pyongyang remain largely unaffected despite the North's nuclear and missile programs. About 100 North Korean business entities will attend the North Korea-China Economic, Tra

Oct. 16, 2014

Korean won rises to over 2-week high vs dollar, government bonds rally on U.S. data

South Korea's currency rose to the U.S. dollar for a fifth day Thursday as weak data from the U.S. stoked speculation that the Federal Reserve's rate hikes may come later than expected.The Korean won closed at 1,061.50 to the greenback, up 1.6 won from the previous session's close. The local currency rose to as high as 1,057.40 won at one point.Data released on Wednesday showed that U.S. retail sales dropped by a sharper than expected rate of 0.3 percent in September, following the four-month hi

Oct. 16, 2014

S. Korean economy facing risks of low growth, low inflation: finance minister

South Korea's economy is facing numerous risks, including protracted low growth and low inflation, which requires the government to keep up its efforts to reinvigorate the economy by stimulating consumption and corporate investment, the finance minister said Thursday."Our economy is confronting the risks of low growth and low inflation as domestic demand recovery is being delayed," Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan said in a parliamentary audit session, adding that external conditions are not fav

Oct. 16, 2014

Mobis listed among top 10% sustainable companies

Hyundai Mobis was listed among the top 10 percent of the world’s most sustainable companies by Dow Jones for the fourth consecutive year, the automotive parts company said Wednesday. According to Mobis, the company received the highest Dow Jones Sustainability Index rank in the environment category among 2,500 surveyed global companies for its efforts to curb carbon emission at production sites. The company also received good reviews for risk management as well as support system for more than 1,

Oct. 15, 2014

S. Korea's jobless rate inches down to 3.2 pct in Sept.

South Korea's jobless rate inched down in September from a month earlier, but the pace of job creation slowed to a three-month low, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3.2 percent last month, down from 3.3 percent a month earlier. The seasonally adjusted jobless rate remained unchanged at3.5 percent.The number of employed people in September came to 25.91 million, up 451,000 from a year earlier. This is the slowest on-year j

Oct. 15, 2014

Korea’s monthly home transactions highest since April

South Korea’s home transactions rose significantly from a year earlier in September, the government said Tuesday, apparently due to the latest government measures to revamp the country’s property market.The total number of home transactions spiked 51.9 percent on-year to 86,186 last month, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.The figure marked the second-highest monthly sales of homes this year since 92,691 homes exchanged hands in April, the ministry added.Home transa

Oct. 14, 2014

Market heavyweights’ influences on Seoul bourse waning

South Korea’s top 10 listed firms by market capitalization saw their dominance in the main bourse decrease sharply this year, due mainly to a drop in share prices of market bellwether Samsung Electronics Co. and other heavyweights, data showed Tuesday.The combined market cap of these firms came to 406.99 trillion won ($381 billion) as of Friday, accounting for 31.42 percent of the total, according to the data by the bourse operator Korea Exchange.The comparable figures at the end of last year we

Oct. 14, 2014

KNOC blasted for mismanagement of Canadian refinery

Korea National Oil Corp. was pounded during the parliamentary audit on Monday for mismanagement of Harvest Operations, a Canadian oil producer and refiner wholly owned by South Korea’s state-run energy company. As part of the former Lee Myung-bak administration’s resource diplomacy, KNOC acquired a 100 percent stake in Harvest, including its money-losing refinery affiliate North Atlantic Refining Limited. Of the total acquisition price of 4 trillion won ($3.8 billion), KNOC paid some 900 billion

Oct. 13, 2014

Seoul, Beijing to extend currency swap deal to 2017

South Korea's central bank said Saturday it has agreed with its Chinese counterpart to extend their maturing currency swap deal by three years to 2017.In a meeting in Washington, Bank of Korea (BOK) Governor Lee Ju-yeol and People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan signed an agreement to extend the bilateral deal to Oct. 10, 2017, the central bank said in a statement. The accord was to expire this year.In October 2011, the two central banks agreed to double their won-yuan swap line to 64 tr

Oct. 12, 2014

Seoul shares dip to 5-month low on growth worries

South Korean stocks dropped to a five-month low on Friday as investors remained concerned over a protracted slump in the global economy, analysts said. The local currency rose against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) shed 24.33 points, or 1.24 percent, to 1,940.92. Trading volume was moderate at 338 million shares worth 4.35 trillion won (US$4.06 billion), with losers far outnumbering gainers, 620 to 214.Friday's closing marks the lowest since 1,939.88 on M

Oct. 10, 2014

Korean exports expected to grow in Q4: poll

South Korea’s export growth is likely to rise in the fourth quarter led by the semiconductor and petrochemical sectors, while automakers and steelmakers may suffer, the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency said Thursday.According to the survey conducted by KOTRA on 2,142 trading company officials last month, South Korea’s leading export index for the October-December period came to 52.1 points, up 0.8 from the previous quarter.A reading above 50 translates into more exports, while n

Oct. 9, 2014

Korea’s potential growth rate to remain at 3.6%: report

South Korea’s potential economic growth is expected to remain in the mid-3 percent range in the next five years due to sluggish investment and a lack of new growth engines, a parliamentary report said Thursday.The National Assembly Budget Office forecast the nation’s potential growth rate to average 3.6 percent in the 2014-2018 period, which is the pace at which annual output can expand without pushing up inflation. The potential growth rate had stood at 5.2 percent in 2001 and 2002, but fell to

Oct. 9, 2014

S. Korean exports expected to grow in Q4: poll

South Korea's export growth is likely to rise in the fourth quarter led by the semiconductor and petrochemical sectors, while automakers and steelmakers may suffer, the state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) said Thursday.According to the survey conducted by KOTRA on 2,142 trading company officials last month, South Korea's leading export index for the October-December period came to 52.1 points, up 0.8 from the previous quarter.A reading above 50 translates into more exports,

Oct. 9, 2014

Exports of industrial parts, materials reach new high in Q3

South Korea’s exports of industrial parts and materials reached a record high in the first nine months of the year with the country’s trade surplus in the sector expected to top $100 billion for the first time in its history this year, the government said Wednesday.In the January-September period, outbound shipments of industrial parts and materials came to $203.3 billion, up 4.1 percent from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.The amount also accou

Oct. 8, 2014

S. Korea to inject additional 5 tln won to stimulate economic recovery

South Korea will inject an additional 5 trillion won (US$4.69 billion) worth of policy funds this year to revive the slowing economic recovery, the finance ministry said Wednesday.The injection is in addition to 26 trillion won that the government had set aside for this year as part of its 41 trillion won worth of stimulus measures. The government also plans to allow more duty-free shops to open in Seoul and other major cities in a bid to bolster consumption by foreign travelers, including a gro

Oct. 8, 2014

IMF retains S. Korea's 2014 growth target at 3.7 pct

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) kept its growth estimate for South Korea's economy at 3.7 percent for 2014 on Tuesday while predicting Asia's fourth-largest economy will expand 4 percent next year."In Korea, growth should rise from 3.7 percent this year to 4.0 percent in 2015, led by exports and investment," the Washington-headquartered institute said in its new World Economic Outlook issued ahead of the 2014 fall meetings of the IMF and the World Bank.The estimate for this year's growth i

Oct. 8, 2014