Korea to launch dumping probe into imported stainless steel bars

South Korea's trade commission said Thursday it will launch an anti-dumping investigation into stainless steel bar products imported from Taiwan and Italy.The Korea Trade Commission under the trade ministry said it made the decision at the request of Korean manufacturers, including Dongil Steel Co. and SeAH Special Steel Corp., who claimed that the cheap imports hurt their businesses.The commission said it will look into whether Taiwanese and Italian companies sold their products below fair mark

May 17, 2018

Seoul will phase in FX market intervention disclosure plan: minister

South Korea will be revealing its records on foreign exchange market intervention at an incremental pace, as part of efforts to promote the credibility of the nation’s currency policies, according to the top financial policymaker on Thursday.“The disclosure of the (government’s) measures to stabilize the foreign exchange market is the right way to go,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon in a meeting of economy-related ministers.“But consid

May 17, 2018

Seoulites spend 96 minutes on daily commute: data

Seoul citizens spend an average of an hour and 36 minutes traveling to and from work every day, data showed Wednesday.According to a report by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Transport Institute, Seoul citizens’ average commuting time as of 2016 stood at 96.4 minutes, the longest among major cities and provinces nationwide. Of this daily average, 41.8 minutes were spent going to work and 54.6 minutes on returning home.The corresponding figures for the metro

May 16, 2018

Concerns rise ahead of reduced workweek implementation

Concerns are deepening that the planned implementation of reduced work hours unaccompanied by specific guidelines and supplementary measures will add to difficulties faced by local companies, pushing them further to move production abroad.Under the labor law revision passed by the National Assembly in February, the maximum workweek will be reduced from 68 hours to 52 hours in three stages, starting from July 1 at companies with 300 employees or more. The shortened workweek will be applied to fir

May 16, 2018

Women make up 3% of execs at Korea's top conglomerates

The number of female executives at South Korea's top 30 conglomerates came to 3.1 percent of the total last year, a market tracker said Wednesday, in a sign that the glass ceiling is still intact in the male-dominated Asian country.Among 8,835 executives of 268 affiliates belonging to the business groups, known as chaebol here, that submitted business reports last year, only 274 were female, according to CEO Score.Yet, it was the first time for the tally to surpass the 3 percent mark, it said. T

May 16, 2018

Jobless rate falls to 4.1% in April, job creation remains sluggish

South Korea's jobless rate fell slightly in April due to a rise in employment in the health care, financial service and public service sectors, but job creation still remained weak, government data showed Wednesday.The unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent last month, down 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.The number of employed people reached 26.86 million in April, up 123,000 from a year earlier, according to the data.The unemployme

May 16, 2018

Korea not immune from emerging market instability

Korea is unlikely to be significantly affected by the spreading financial instability in emerging market countries but it must not let its guard down, analysts say.There are growing concerns that capital outflow from emerging economies with weak fundamentals will accelerate in the coming months, as they are being hit by the strengthening of the dollar amid the rise in US interest rates and oil prices. Prompted by the prospect that low unemployment and high oil prices will push inflation above it

May 14, 2018

Service exports fall some 8% in 2017

South Korea's service exports shrank nearly 8 percent in 2017 from a year earlier due to a strong local currency amid the service industry's weakening competitiveness, data showed Monday.The service sector in Asia's fourth-largest economy saw its exports reach $87.72 billion last year, down 7.6 percent from the previous year, according to the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.Among the 35 OECD members, South Korea was the sole country that suffered a fall in ser

May 14, 2018

Seoul’s luxury residence prices grow at fastest rate: Knight Frank

Despite government-led regulations to rein in the real estate market, luxury residence prices in Seoul shot up nearly 25 percent on-year in the first quarter, marking the fastest rate of growth worldwide. According to a report on the Prime Global Cities Index by UK-based real estate data provider Knight Frank, which analyzed houses that ranged in the upper 5 percent in terms of prices in 43 global cities, house prices in Seoul showed the fastest growth rate, five times the average growth rate of

May 13, 2018

Korea's leading economic indicator drops below break-even line: OECD

A leading index that gauges the direction of South Korea's economy fell below the break-even 100 mark in the first two months of this year, which could bode ill for Asia's fourth-largest economy going forward, official data showed Sunday.According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's composite leading indicator, Seoul's reading stood at 99.8 in both January and February.The last time South Korea's CLI had dipped below 100 was in September 2014, when it stood at 99.8. Th

May 13, 2018

[Weekender] Carb phobia: healthy diet or excessive frenzy?

“Have you eaten rice?”It’s one of the most frequently used greetings in Korea, where the staple has long been considered a synonym for a meal. Even amid the rise of western food and snacks, rice continued to be appreciated as the prime source of sustenance and a symbol of the country’s traditional food legacy.But recent health trends increasingly consider rice -- and carbohydrates in general -- to be the main culprit of obesity and all sorts of other modern lifestyle dise

May 11, 2018

Economic recovery being maintained, but output, capital spending facing correction

South Korea‘s economy is on a recovery path, although industrial output and investment are facing adjustments, a government report said Friday.A weaker job market and rate hikes in the United States pose downside risks to Asia’s fourth-largest economy, the finance ministry said in its monthly economic assessment report.“The overall recovery pace is being maintained,” the ministry said. “Industrial output and investment faced correction in the first two months of the

May 11, 2018

Controversy over minimum wage hike shows no sign of easing in Korea

Guaranteeing a living wage for everyone is important, and Hyun Sang-won (an alias), the owner of a convenience store in downtown Seoul, agrees in principle that people deserve fair pay for work rendered.But the harsh reality facing the 50-something retiree is that he is currently tinkering with the possibility of reducing part-time workers at his store amid a saturated market and increased costs, which he says partly stems from the recent hike in the country's legal minimum wage. Preaching an in

May 11, 2018

More than half of all wages based on seniority

More than half of all salaries in 170 major South Korean companies are based on employee seniority, a new poll showed Thursday.The poll released by the Korea Economic Research Institute found that 51.2 percent of employees receive seniority-based salaries while 36.2 percent receive their salaries based on performance.Under the decades-old seniority-based wage system, employee pay rises every year regardless of productivity. This kind of hierarchical pay system has been cited for placing a financ

May 10, 2018

Korean economy losing growth momentum

Recent economic data have pointed to the weakening vitality of the Korean economy, raising questions about the possibility it will grow more than 3 percent this year as predicted by policymakers.The country saw all economic indicators except for retail sales take a negative turn in March, the latest month for which official data are available.Economists here caution that the supply side of the Korean economy is falling apart as its key traditional manufacturing industries are losing competitiven

May 9, 2018

Naver vows to relinquish news editing, search words after opinion-rigging scandal

Naver, the operator of South Korea’s largest portal website and search engine, announced on Wednesday a set of measures to prevent a repeat of the latest opinion-rigging scandal, including relinquishing its authority to edit news headlines and removal of a news list on the mobile front page. Naver CEO Han Seong-sook said, “Naver will no longer engage in editing news from the third quarter,” at a press conference held in southern Seoul. Such a decision has been made in the wake

May 9, 2018

[Monitor] 6.8 years needed to own home in Korea

It takes an average of 6.8 years of savings to own one’s first home in South Korea, as of last year, slightly longer than 6.7 years tallied in 2016, according to analyses on housing in the country conducted by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport.The average number of years residing in one place came to eight years, also up from 7.7 years in 2016. While homeowners lived in their homes for an average of 11.1 years, those renting the place stayed for an average of 3.4 years.The

May 9, 2018

Economic growth on track, but daunting tasks still remain

SEJONG -- The South Korean economy is on a firm growth trajectory under the Moon Jae-in government, but a dire job market situation, coupled with controversy over the effects of a raft of new economic policies, is posing daunting challenges for the liberal government that took office a year ago.South Korea's economic growth accelerated last year on the back of robust exports amid a global economic recovery. The nation's economy expanded 3.1 percent in 2017 from a year ago, when it grew 2.8 perce

May 9, 2018

Moon failing to deliver on economic promises

A year into his five-year term, President Moon Jae-in is finding public support for his economic policies far lower than his high approval ratings.A survey of 1,002 Korean adults conducted by Gallup Korea earlier this month showed 83 percent gave a positive appraisal of his overall job performance.But only 47 percent said he was doing well in the economic area, down from 52 percent six months after his inauguration on May 10 last year.What should be taken more seriously by Moon and his economic

May 7, 2018

S. Korea's risk premium hits yearly low on eased N. Korea woes

South Korea's credit default risk has hit a yearly low amid rising hope for reconciliation between the two Koreas after Seoul and Pyongyang successfully held a summit last month, data showed Satuday. The credit default swap premium for South Korean foreign exchange stabilization bonds with a five-year maturity reached 42 basis points as of Friday, according to the data by the Korea Center for International Finance.It is the first time the figure has reached 42 basis points since Jan. 11, wh

May 5, 2018