S. Korea's air passenger traffic falls 7.7% in 2021

South Korea's air passenger traffic fell 7.7 percent in 2021 from a year earlier due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the transport ministry said Thursday. A total of 36.36 million passengers, including 3.21 million on international routes, flew with full-service and low-cost carriers in 2021 mainly for business purposes, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The number of passengers on international routes plunged 78 percent on-year last year as countries maintai

Feb. 3, 2022

S. Korea earmarks W841b for key materials, parts development

South Korea will earmark 841 billion won ($697.4 million) for research and development of key materials and parts this year in a move to reduce dependency on foreign supplies and boost competitiveness of local industries, the industry ministry said Thursday. It is up 22 percent from last year's budget, as the country has been ramping up efforts to nurture the materials and parts industry, particularly after Japan's control on exports of key products in 2019. Of the budget, 321.8 billion won wi

Feb. 3, 2022

Canadian authorities approve Samsung Bioepis' Ontruzant

South Korean biopharmaceutical firm Samsung Bioepis Co. said Thursday it has won approval from Canadian authorities for the sale of its biosimilar cancer drug Ontruzant. The Health Canada has approved Ontruzant -- a biosimilar product referencing Switzerland-based Roche Holding's Herceptin, also known as Trastuzumab -- for treatment of adults with early breast cancer, metastatic breast cancer and metastatic gastric cancer. Ontruzant will be commercialized in Canada by global pharmaceutical gia

Feb. 3, 2022

34 more firms added to antitrust watch list

The number of South Korean companies affiliated with large business groups under tight supervision rose by 34 in the three months ending Jan. 31 as conglomerates expanded new businesses, the antitrust regulator said Thursday. The total number of affiliates on the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) watch list reached 2,738 as of end-January, compared with 2,704 three months earlier, according to the commission. Major business groups newly launched or acquired 112 units, while offloading 78 others from

Feb. 3, 2022

BOK calls for vigilance on market volatility following holiday

South Korea should stay vigilant on the possibility of heightening financial market volatility amid persistent worries over inflation in major economies and other risk factors, though the markets showed signs of stability in recent days, a senior central bank official said Thursday. The Bank of Korea (BOK) held a meeting to monitor global financial market situations following the five-day Lunar New Year holiday that ended on Wednesday during which local stock and currency markets were closed. T

Feb. 3, 2022

Seoul stocks open higher on US gains

S outh Korean stocks opened steeply higher Thursday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street that stemmed from robust earnings reports. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 46.77 points, or 1.76 percent, to trade at 2,710.11 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. The Kospi got off to a bullish start after a three-day holiday, as the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite added 0.5 percent and the Dow Jones Industrial Average advanced 0.63 percent Wednesday. In Seoul, market b

Feb. 3, 2022

Housing price decline expected to accelerate: finance minister

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Thursday the country's housing prices are expected to pick up their declining pace amid the central bank's rate hike and tighter lending rules. Hong said the government is committed to implementing its current real estate policy with a focus on increasing the home supply in a bid to stabilize housing prices. "We think housing prices need to undergo a downward correction to some degree, given that home prices have excessively risen. The government plans to

Feb. 3, 2022

Ratio of nonwage workers hits record low in 2021

The ratio of the self-employed and other nonwage workers in South Korea touched an all-time low in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Thursday. Asia's fourth-largest economy had 6.52 million unsalaried workers as of the end of December last year, marking the 23rd consecutive year of decline, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The number accounted for 23.9 percent of the country's total employed people, the lowest tally since data tracking began in 1963.

Feb. 3, 2022

Korea’s stock market cap falls fifth-fastest in Jan.

South Korea ranked fifth among 47 countries globally in the drop in stock market capitalization between December last year and January this year, amid US Fed rate hike worries, a local brokerage said Wednesday.　 The country’s benchmark Kospi and junior Kosdaq stood at about $1.9 trillion in market value on Jan. 26, down from $2.1 trillion on Dec. 31, 2021, in a 10 percent fall, according to Daishin Securities, which cited Bloomberg data. Russia saw the greatest drop at 16 percent, followe

Feb. 2, 2022

Will supply side issue affect Galaxy S22 launch?

With Samsung Electronics’ Galaxy Unpacked event just a week to go, all eyes are on whether the launch of flagship Galaxy S22 smartphones would be affected by the supply chain bottlenecks. Recent rumors suggested that the smartphones succeeding the S21 lineups -- Galaxy S22, S22 Plus and S22 Ultra -- might be subject to supply side issues, which could delay shipments following the Unpacked event. The marketing materials distributed to mobile carriers in the United States for the S22 and

Feb. 2, 2022

Convenience stores outrank supermarkets in market share

Korea’s convenience stores’ combined market share outgrew that of local supermarkets for the first time, amid the fast-growing trend to shop in less crowded places due to the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Wednesday. According to data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, sales revenue of three convenience stores -- GS25, CU and 7-Eleven -- came to 30.7 percent last year, following three department stores -- Lotte, Shinsegae and Hyundai. The figure surpassed that of t

Feb. 2, 2022

Samsung's metaverse service My House sees early success

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday its My House world map service, launched in collaboration with Naver‘s 3D avatar platform Zepeto, saw cumulative visits quickly surging to over 4 million in less than a month.  My House invites users to experience Samsung home appliances and furniture in a personalized virtual “home“ that users can decorate to their individual taste. The metaverse platform was unveiled on Jan. 5 at the annual tech show CES 2022. Since then, the cumulati

Feb. 2, 2022

Vehicle registrations fall 9% in 2021

South Korea's new vehicle registrations fell 9 percent last year from a year earlier as chip shortages affected vehicle production and sales, the transport ministry said Wednesday. The number of newly registered vehicles declined 173,000 units to 17.43 million in 2021 from 19.16 million a year ago, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a statement. Of the annual total, registrations of locally produced passenger cars fell 11 percent to 14.29 million last year from 1.60 mil

Feb. 2, 2022

Why aren't there Korean-made vaccines yet?

Although it has been over two years since the coronavirus began spreading in Korea, the country has not seen a homemade vaccine developed yet. SK Bioscience is the company closest to delivering the first Korean-developed vaccine as the biopharmaceutical firm’s GBP510 is in the third and final phase of clinical trials. The government and company officials have voiced hope for a successful result and swift authorization as well as commercialization of GBP510 in the first half of this year,

Feb. 2, 2022

Jeju golf courses log record visitors again in 2021

With cross-border travel restricted, golfers continued to flock to Jeju last year, pushing the resort island’s golf tourism records to all-time highs. According to the island province’s official data, a record 2.89 million people visited golf courses there in 2021, up 21.6 percent from a year earlier. It was the second year in a row that the tally rose to a new record. In 2020, some 2.38 million teed off in Jeju, logging an on-year growth of 14.7 percent. Of last year’s 2

Feb. 2, 2022

Hyundai, Kia's own platform-based EV sales exceed 100,000 units

Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Corp. said Wednesday they sold more than 100,000 units of electric vehicles equipped with their own EV platform since April in global markets. Last year, Hyundai Motor launched the Hyundai IONIQ5 and the GV60 SUV under its independent Genesis brand, while Kia released the EV6 sedan mounted on the group's own electric-global modular platform (E-GMP).  The all-electric models' sales stood at 96,578 units from April to December. In the first three we

Feb. 2, 2022

Hyundai, Kia's US sales rise 2.3% in January

Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Corp. said Wednesday their combined sales in the United States rose 2.3 percent last month from a year earlier on strong demand for their SUV models. Hyundai and Kia sold a total of 90,360 vehicles in the world's most important automobile market in January, up from 88,359 units a year ago, according to the companies' sales data. Hyundai's US sales climbed 10 percent to 47,872 units from 43,394 over the cited period, while Kia's declined 5.5 percent to

Feb. 2, 2022

Stock funds' net assets suffer 1st shrink in 4 months in Jan. amid slump

The net asset value of stock funds in South Korea suffered a decline for the first time in four months in January, as the global stock market roiled amid major central banks' move to tighten policies, data showed Wednesday. The asset value of publicly placed stock funds stood at 82.7 trillion won ($68.4 billion) as of Thursday, down 8.37 trillion won, or 9.2 percent, from the previous month, according to the data compiled by the Korea Financial Investment Association (KOFIA). The monthly net

Feb. 2, 2022

Samsung C&T wins $510m plant deal from Vietnam

Samsung C&T Corp., the construction unit of Samsung Group, said Wednesday it has obtained a $510 million plant deal from Vietnam. Samsung C&T received the order from Petro Vietnam Power Corp., an affiliate of Vietnam's state-run oil firm Petro Vietnam, to build the Southeast Asian country's first combined cycle power plant, the company said in a statement. Samsung C&T will form a consortium with local builder Lilama Corp. to build gas and steam turbines, heat recovery steam gener

Feb. 2, 2022

S. Korea faces reduced import curbs in 2021 amid pandemic

South Korea faced a reduced number of import curbs from trade partners last year for the first time in a decade amid the pandemic, a trade body said Wednesday. The country was subject to 206 import regulations from 28 countries as of end-December, down 22 from a year earlier amid a decline in global trade during the pandemic, according to a report from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). It marks the first on-year decline from the largest-ever number of import restrictions tar

Feb. 2, 2022