Amid prolonged pandemic, small businesses teeter over piling debt

　 　 Facing tougher social distancing measures over a recent surge in COVID-19 cases, South Korea’s small-enterprise owners are struggling to make ends meet, resorting to laying off employees or borrowing money from banks, data showed Thursday.  The country had 5.58 million self-employed people registered as of June, accounting for 20.2 percent of the total 27.6 million employed workers in the same month, the smallest proportion in nearly 39 years, according to data compiled by the Ko

Aug. 5, 2021

SK REIT gears up Kospi market debut in September

SK REIT, the first real estate investment trust from South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate SK Group, said Thursday that it has begun the process for an initial public offering on the country’s benchmark Kospi in September. The REIT obtained approval on its registration statement from the Financial Service Commission. The REIT aims to raise 232.6 billion won ($203.7 million) from the IPO by floating around 46.5 million new shares at 5,000 won apiece.  Book building for ins

Aug. 5, 2021

Tobacco maker KT&G net profit down 15.9% in Q2

KT&G Corp., South Korea's dominant tobacco firm, said Thursday its earnings sank nearly 16 percent in the second quarter of the year despite a slight rise in sales. KT&G said in a regulatory filing its consolidated net income came to 246.4 billion won ($215.3 million) in the April-June period, down 15.9 percent from a year earlier. Operating profit fell 16.2 percent on-year to 330.1 billion won, while sales increased 2.1 percent to 1.35 trillion won. KT&G said its second-quarter n

Aug. 5, 2021

S. Korea to step up support to fight ransomware attacks

South Korea's ICT ministry said Thursday it will expand support to small businesses to help them ward off ransomware threats after it raised the country's cyberthreat warning level a day earlier. Cyberattacks using ransomware, a type of malware that holds a target's data hostage by locking up systems until a ransom is paid, have been on the rise in South Korea, with 78 such attacks reported to the country's internet security agency in the first half of the year, compared with 39 in 2019 and 127

Aug. 5, 2021

Veteran financial bureaucrat tapped as top financial regulator

Koh Seung-beom, who was nominated to lead the Financial Service Commission (FSC), is an expert with extensive experience in dealing with economic and financial policies. Born in 1962, Koh, currently a member of the Bank of Korea (BOK)'s rate-setting board, passed the civil service exam in 1984, spending most of his career as a public servant at the finance ministry and the financial regulator. The nominee was in charge of major financial policies over household debt, the capital market and cor

Aug. 5, 2021

Samsung's presence in Indian smartphone market falls in Q2: report

Samsung Electronics Co. saw its smartphone market share in India decline in the second quarter of the year, a report showed Thursday, as the tech giant tries to fend off challenges from Chinese players. Samsung represented 17.7 percent of the smartphone shipments in India in the April-June period, down from 25.7 percent a year earlier, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research. The figure was also down from a 20 percent share in the first quarter of the year. The South Korean firm r

Aug. 5, 2021

S. Korea to increase stockpile of rare metals amid soaring demand

South Korea said Thursday it will increase its stockpile of so-called rare metals, in line with growing demand from emerging industries, such as electric cars and rechargeable batteries. Under the plan, the country will seek to maintain at least 100 days' worth of rare metals to cope with potential uncertainties in their supply, significantly up from the current 56.8 days, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. South Korea has been designating 35 different kinds of resources

Aug. 5, 2021

S. Korea to keep stable supply of rebars in H2 amid price hike

South Korea's industry ministry said Thursday it will work to maintain a stable supply of reinforcement steel products used for construction in the second half of 2021, although the recovery of the virus-hit economy may continue to drive up their market prices. The local supply of rebar products is expected to reach 5.6 million tons in the July-December period, up 11 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The amount will surpass the anticipated de

Aug. 5, 2021

New trade minister tasked with post-pandemic trade recovery

Yeo Han-koo, who has been tapped as South Korea's new trade minister, is tasked with a mission to maintain a recovery in exports amid the virus pandemic and expand its trade portfolio with emerging economies. The 51-year-old bureaucrat has served various positions at the trade ministry, before taking the current position as the presidential secretary for New Southern and New Northern policies. "We anticipate that Yeo will successfully carry out pending issues, including coping with the ne

Aug. 5, 2021

German luxury trio gets lion's share of S. Korea's imported car market

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Thursday the government will discuss with local banks whether to further roll over the debt and interest payments of small merchants hit hard by the pandemic. Since April last year, the government has encouraged local banks to extend loan maturity and hold off interest payments for micro business owners to help them cope with the fallout of the pandemic. The measures, which have been extended by six months twice, are set to expire at end-September. "The g

Aug. 5, 2021

[Graphic News] S. Korea‘s biopharmaceutical exports more than double in 2020

　Korea’s exports of biopharmaceutical products more than doubled in 2020 from a year earlier on the back of growing demand for pharmaceutical products amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a report showed. 　Outbound shipments of high-end biopharmaceutical products came to $5.1 billion in 2020, compared to around $2.1 billion tallied the previous year, according to the Korea International Trade Association. 　Asia’s fourth-largest economy stood in seventh place in terms of exports in the s

Aug. 5, 2021

Debt rollover for pandemic-hit merchants to be discussed soon: finance minister

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Thursday the government will discuss with local banks whether to further roll over the debt and interest payments of small merchants hit hard by the pandemic. Since April last year, the government has encouraged local banks to extend loan maturity and hold off interest payments for micro business owners to help them cope with the fallout of the pandemic. The measures, which have been extended by six months twice, are set to expire at end-September. "The g

Aug. 5, 2021

Online lender Kakao set to debut on stock market

South Korean internet-only bank is slated to debut on the country's main stock market this week in one of this year's mega initial public offerings. Kakao Bank will make its debut on the KOSPI market Friday, with its public offering price set at 39,000 won ($34.1). Kakao Bank, the larger of South Korea's two online lenders, hopes to raise 2.55 trillion won via its listing on the main bourse. Its IPO has drawn a rather tepid response from retail investors with the subscription rate standing at

Aug. 5, 2021

S. Korea's 5G users top 16m: data

The number of smartphone users on 5G mobile networks topped 16 million as of June, data showed Thursday, as subscriptions to the latest generation networks continued to grow despite a lack of new flagship 5G phones. The total number of 5G users reached 16.47 million in June, accounting for around 23 percent of the total 71.63 million mobile subscriptions in the country, according to the data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. The latest data marks an increase from 15.84 million in May. Sout

Aug. 5, 2021

Seoul stocks open higher on bio gains

South Korean stocks opened higher Thursday, backed by strong advances in major bio stocks. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) added 6.83 points, or 0.21 percent, to trade at 3,287.21 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Bio stocks jumped as the country's daily new coronavirus cases sharply increased to the 1,700s on Wednesday despite the strongest virus restrictions. Giant pharmaceutical firm Samsung Biologics jumped 3.1 percent, with Celltrion advancing 1.67 percent. SK B

Aug. 5, 2021

S&P leaves S. Korea’s growth rate, credit rating unchanged

Despite the fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic striking a blow to the South Korean economy, global credit appraiser S&P Global Ratings said it would keep the country’s economic growth rate outlook for 2021 and credit rating unchanged, citing robust exports. The agency projected Asia’s fourth-largest economy to grow 4 percent and kept the credit rating at AA, same as estimates from last month and in April. “Overall economic forecasts for South Korea are still looking f

Aug. 4, 2021

China turns against video games just as Korean firms see signs of thaw

Shares of South Korea’s major game developers and publishers declined on Tuesday after Chinese state media slammed games as “spiritual opium,” highlighting the close link between the two neighboring countries within the global gaming industry as well as risks linked to China’s regulatory whims. The turmoil was sparked by a state-run media outlet in China that published a negative article about gaming and called for stricter controls on “addictive” games. As

Aug. 4, 2021

Thousands of pubs, karaokes disappear amid social distancing

The number of pubs and karaoke parlors has plummeted due to lost profitability from COVID-19 and tough social distancing rules, data from the National Tax Service showed Wednesday. The number of stores registered as pubs across the country stood at 27,840 as of the end of May, according to the tax authority’s survey on 100 key sectors of the self-employed segment. The figure dropped 3,636 or 11.6 percent from last year. The number of stores registered as semi-pubs -- whic

Aug. 4, 2021

Financial firms need ESG-oriented business strategy: report

Seoul-based consulting firm KPMG Samjong on Wednesday urged local financial firms to accelerate their sustainable corporate management through business strategies focused on environmental, social and governance factors, or ESG.  “To enhance corporate values, local financial institutions should integrate ESG values into their business processes, ranging from strategy making to risk management,” KPMG Samjong said in its report.  “For instance, while improving gover

Aug. 4, 2021

Celltrion to develop mRNA COVID-19 vaccine

South Korean pharmaceutical giant Celltrion announced Wednesday that the company will develop a messenger RNA vaccine that can protect against COVID-19 variants, under a partnership with US-based biotech firm TriLink BioTechnologies. TriLink is a San Diego-based contract development and manufacturing organization for synthesis of nucleic acids and mRNA capping analogs. “Under the partnership with TriLink, (Celltrion) will develop a mRNA vaccine platform, through which the company could

Aug. 4, 2021