Some sectors of South Korea’s business industry will be allowed to resume trading with Iran as policymakers have decided to partly lift a ban on exports to the Middle Eastern country on March 17.The Finance Ministry said Tuesday that it decided on the policy ― restrictive and will apply only for some service industries ― following the U.S. administration’s recent easing of economic sanctions on Iran for six months between Jan. 20 and July 20 this year.The ministry said the beneficiaries of the c

March 11, 2014

South Korea’s agriculture minister said on Tuesday that the ministry is mulling ways to protect local farmers in preparation for a possible opening of the Korean rice market.“We are now under high pressure to open up the (rice) market,” Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs Minister Lee Dong-phil said at a press meeting, adding that a decision will be reached in June.The announcement came on the same day that Korea and Canada finally signed a long-delayed free-trade deal. The two countries initiall

March 11, 2014

Carlyle Group LP, which completed South Korea’s biggest private-equity buyout in five years, sees more large transactions as the nation sustains its economic growth amid emerging-market turbulence.The buyout firm, the Asian investments of which span budget hotels to injectable drugs, agreed to buy Tyco International Ltd.’s fire-alarm business in Korea for $1.93 billion earlier this month. Preqin Ltd. data show buyouts backed by private equity rose 65 percent to $4.3 billion in 2013, the most sin

March 11, 2014

South Korea's central bank is expected to freeze the key interest rate for the 10th consecutive month for March as the local economy is recovering amid tame inflation, a poll showed Tuesday.All 14 analysts surveyed by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency, forecast that the Bank of Korea will leave the benchmark seven-day repo rate unchanged at 2.5 percent on Thursday.The March meeting will mark the last rate-setting session for Gov. Kim Choong-soo as his four-year term ex

March 11, 2014

Financial companies, when found responsible for a massive personal data leak, will face a fine of up to 3 percent of their total annual sales and customers will be given the right to order the firms to erase their personal information, according to the nation’s financial regulator.Despite these new regulations, however, experts and civic groups continued to express dissatisfaction, claiming that the financial authorities’ plan lacked effective penalties and compensation methods.The Financial Ser

March 10, 2014

South Korean stocks dropped 1.03 percent on Monday on concerns over weaker-than-expected data from China and continued instability in Ukraine, analysts said. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 20.26 points to 1,954.42. Trading volume was moderate at 207 million shares worth 3.35 trillion won ($3.14 billion), and losers outnumbered gainers 494 to 311.China, South Korea’s largest trading partner, said over the weekend that its expor

March 10, 2014

Stock transactions via mobile devices have continued to rise sharply as more retail investors have opted to use their smartphones and tablet PCs for stock trading, the bourse operator said Monday.Stock trading via mobile gadgets made up for some 25 percent of the total transactions on the country’s main bourse last month, compared with 21 percent tallied a year earlier, according to the Korea Exchange.Comparable figures for 2012 and 2011 were 14.45 percent and 7.55 percent, the data showed.The m

March 10, 2014

South Korea is among the few Asian countries showing signs of slower growth due to rising inequality, according to a study by the Asian Development Bank Institute.Twelve countries in the Asia-Pacific region, including Korea, China and Indonesia, have experienced growing income inequality between 1990 and 2010, according to the report.The study, entitled “Rising Inequality in Asia and Policy Implications,” released in February, is based on the countries’ Gini coefficient between 1990 and 2010.The

March 10, 2014

Financial firms will be slapped with fines amounting to 3 percent of their annual sales when responsible for a massive leak of personal data, and clients will be given an option to revoke their consent to providing their private information, the country's financial regulator said Monday.Also, financial firms will be required to delete clients' data upon termination of financial transactions during a given grace period and barred from sharing the data with their affiliates beyond a set limit, acc

March 10, 2014

The Fair Trade Commission said Sunday that it fined conglomerates GS, Hanwha and Hanjin for illicit internal transactions that violated disclosure requirements.The FTC detected 41 cases of violation at 24 of the three groups’ 171 subsidiaries and imposed combined fines of 586 million won ($552,300), the commission officials said.The fine followed a probe recently conducted on the country’s top 10 privately owned business groups, which possess assets of 5 trillion won or more.GS Group topped the

March 9, 2014

Earnings by South Korean credit card companies jumped 27.1 percent last year from a year earlier from a drop in bad debt expenses, the financial regulator said Sunday.The combined net income of seven stand-alone card firms came to 1.66 trillion won ($1.56 billion) in 2013 compared with 1.3 trillion won the previous year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.The 2013 performance of Woori Card Co., which spun off from Woori Bank in April, was not included in the data.The FSS attributed t

March 9, 2014

The conglomerate sector is expected to raise its vigilance level against a possible veto by the state-controlled pension fund during an upcoming annual general meeting of shareholders in the wake of a case at Mando Corp., a subsidiary of Halla Group.During Mando’s shareholder meeting on Friday, the National Pension Service, the second-largest shareholder of Mando, voted against the proposal to reappoint company CEO Shin Sa-hyeon to the post for another term. In a statement, the NPS argued that S

March 7, 2014

The South Korean government will give a much-needed boost to mergers and acquisitions activities in the next three years, setting a goal of expanding the local M&A market.The Finance Ministry announced on Thursday that the government is looking to amend and abolish a number of regulations so as to encourage corporate takeovers and more private-equity-backed M&A deals.The government is targeting to increase the volume local M&A market around 70 trillion won ($65 billion) by 2017, from about 40 tr

March 6, 2014

The Financial Supervisory Service declared that its top task this year is to reinforce the protection of financial consumers. The regulator is pinning hopes on the coming enhanced protection system to boost consumers’ trust and consequently increase the demands in the financial market.Amid escalating worries after a massive credit card data leak earlier this year, the regulator on Wednesday held a briefing session on how it plans to bolster supervision of the information security of financial co

March 5, 2014

Hyundai Motor Co.’s brand-new Sonata sedan has received a modest bump in price over the outgoing model that reflects various updates in handling and safety, the carmaker said Wednesday.The price for the base 2.0-liter-engine Sonata LF with a continuously variable valve lift has been set at 22.7 million won ($21,000), a gain of 600,000 won from the current sixth-generation Sonata YF that has been in production since 2009.It said for the highest trim level, the new car’s price goes up to 28.8 mill

March 5, 2014