Moody's says quality-related expenses credit negative for Hyundai

Moody's Investors Service said Thursday that Hyundai Motor Group's 3.4 trillion-won ($3 billion) quality-related provisions will be credit negative for the South Korean carmaker. In its recent report, Moody's said the sizable provisions for engine recalls and quality management highlights the continued quality-control challenges facing Hyundai and will hit the carmaker's profitability this year. Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. put aside 2.1 trillion won and 1.26 trillion

Oct. 22, 2020

Brokerages revise up Q3 earnings outlook for major listed firms

South Korean brokerage houses have upgraded their third-quarter earnings outlook for major listed companies despite the coronavirus pandemic, a market tracker said Thursday. The combined operating income forecast for 173 major listed firms came to 38.2 trillion won ($33.7 billion) for the July-September period as of Wednesday, up 24.1 percent from a year earlier, according to FnGuide. It also represents a 5.5 percent increase from their estimate of 36.1 trillion won made a month earlier. The

Oct. 22, 2020

Coronavirus-caused job crisis spills over to non-service sectors: report

While the outbreak of COVID-19 initially impacted jobs in the service sector, the fallout has now spilled over to South Korea’s manufacturing and knowledge industries amid the prolonged epidemic crisis, data showed Wednesday. Also, young workers under 40 took a heavier blow than those in their 40s and 50, while those aged 60 and older saw a rise in their employment numbers. The number of people employed in retail, wholesale, lodging and restaurant businesses totaled 5.52 million in S

Oct. 21, 2020

S. Korea vows to join IMF's move to help low-income nations hit by pandemic

SEJONG -- South Korea will join a move by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help low-income nations recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Wednesday. Hong made the remarks during a virtual meeting with IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva earlier in the day, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in a statement. South Korea also supports an increase in funding for the IMF as demand for loans and grants jumped in the wake of the pandemic, Hong said. E

Oct. 21, 2020

37% of firms fail to repay interest on debts in 2019: BOK

About 37 percent of firms in South Korea failed to repay the interest on their debts in 2019, central bank data showed Wednesday, highlighting concerns about deteriorating corporate financial status amid economic gloom. The number of so-called marginal or zombie firms is expected to rise further this year as the coronavirus pandemic devastated the nation's economy. According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), 36.6 percent of 384,877 firms made less profit than their interest expenses for a third co

Oct. 21, 2020

Hyundai Motor to overhaul process for quality control

Hyundai Motor Group said Wednesday it will overhaul its product quality control process following engine recalls and fires in an electric model. Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. plan to simplify the overall quality control process to better focus on resolving problems, a Hyundai official said over the phone. Hyundai and Kia, which together form the world's fifth-biggest carmaker by sales, will also simplify the decision-making process to respond to customers' demands as qu

Oct. 21, 2020

Producer prices up for 4th straight month in Sept. on farm goods

South Korea's producer prices rose for the fourth straight month in September, due largely to increased costs of agricultural, livestock and fishery goods, central bank data showed Wednesday. The producer price index, a barometer of future consumer inflation, inched up 0.1 percent in September from the previous month, slowing from a 0.5 percent on-month gain in August, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marked the fourth consecutive month of increase after the price index stayed flat in

Oct. 21, 2020

Exports fall 5.8% in first 20 days of October

SEJONG -- South Korea's exports fell 5.8 percent on-year in the first 20 days of October amid the fallout from the new coronavirus outbreak, customs data showed Wednesday. The nation's outbound shipments stood at $25.2 billion in the Oct. 1-20 period, compared with $26.7 billion a year ago, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Per-day exports, however, rose 5.9 percent on-year in the Oct. 1-20 period, the Korea Customs Service said. This month, fewer working days from the Ch

Oct. 21, 2020

Doosan Heavy wins $787m power plant order from Vietnam

South Korean power plant builder Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. said Tuesday it has signed a $787 million deal to build a coal-fired power plant in northeastern Vietnam. Under the deal with Vapco, a Vietnamese unit of the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco), Doosan Heavy Industries will build the plant and provide equipment including boilers from March 2021 to February 2025, the company said in a regulatory filing. Early this month, the board of Kepco decided to take

Oct. 20, 2020

Public financial enterprises accused of charging excessive interest rates

South Korea’s major financial state-owned corporations turned out to have imposed excessive interest amounts that far exceed the principal upon small-sized debtor businesses, raising skepticism about their “inclusive finance” policy functions, data showed Tuesday. According to data submitted to Rep. Min Hyung-bae, lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and a member of the parliamentary finance committee, the four state-owned companies affiliated with the Financial

Oct. 20, 2020

8 out of 9 state-run financial firms have zero female executives

   Women in leadership positions are still rare at South Korea’s state-run financial institutions, despite the government’s policy drive to empower female workers at the public offices, data showed Tuesday.  As of 2019, eight out of nine public financial bodies in the country were found to have zero women at the executive level, with the exception being the Korea Asset Management Corp., in which two women are holding senior management roles, said Rep. Bae Jin-gyo of

Oct. 20, 2020

[Newsmaker] S. Korea to lift export ban on mask filters

South Korea said Tuesday it will lift the export ban on nonwoven fabrics this week that are used to produce protective masks as the domestic supply of the materials and masks stabilized. Under the decision, the country will lift the regulation that bans firms from exporting more than 15 percent of their production of nonwoven fabrics starting Friday, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Earlier this year, the country ran out of melt-blown nonwoven fabric filters amid soarin

Oct. 20, 2020

Daewoo Shipbuilding develops world's first metalworking robot

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Tuesday it has developed an AI robot for metalworking in the construction of ships for the first time in the world. The AI hot working robot, called Goknuri, is now used to shape steel plates into curved ones at the front and the rear of a steel hull in Daewoo Shipbuilding's shipyard in Geoje Island, about 400 kilometers south of Seoul, South Korea's leading shipbuilder said. Hot working is the metalworking process carried out above 800 C

Oct. 20, 2020

Bond, CD issuance in S. Korea swells 14.1% in Q3

Sales of bonds and certificates of deposits (CDs) in South Korea climbed more than 14 percent in the third quarter of the year from a year earlier, data showed Tuesday. The value of those debt instruments issued in the July-September period came to 114 trillion won ($100 billion), up 14.1 percent from a year ago, according to the data from the Korea Securities Depository (KSD). The third-quarter amount, however, was down 14.8 percent from the previous quarter. The KSD didn't give reasons for

Oct. 20, 2020

S. Korea's demand deposit turnover hits nadir in Aug.

South Korea's demand deposit turnover ratio hit an all-time low in August amid growing uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic, central bank data showed Tuesday, The ratio, or withdrawals of demand deposits divided by the average deposit balance, came to 15.5 for August, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). It was the lowest figure since January 1985, when the BOK began tracking related data. The previous record low was 15.6 posted in May this year. The turnover ratio of de

Oct. 20, 2020

Anxiety mounts on S. Korea’s debt management outlook

Despite the government’s repeated reassurance that South Korea’s sovereign debts are under control, concerns continue to mount not only in the private sector but also among state-run think tanks, data showed Monday. The Korea Institute of Public Finance, a government-funded institution affiliated with the Prime Minister’s Office, recently pointed out that Asia’s fourth-largest economy will see its level of debt without payment resource approach 900 trillion won ($787

Oct. 19, 2020

Hyundai, Kia set to shift to Q3 loss on provisions for massive recall

Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. said Monday they plan to reflect a combined 3.4 trillion won ($3 billion) in provisions for product recall and quality control in their balance sheets for the third quarter of the year, indicating that they are set to swing to net losses in the July-September period. Hyundai and Kia, which together form the world's fifth-biggest carmaker by sales, set aside massive provisions for additional costs for the recall of a faulty engine and preempt

Oct. 19, 2020

GS E&C Q3 net down 43.9% on currency losses

GS Engineering & Construction Co., a major South Korean builder, said Monday that its third-quarter net profit plunged 43.9 percent from a year earlier due to currency losses. GS E&C posted a net profit of 96.8 billion won ($84.7 million) in the July-September period, compared with a net profit of 172.8 billion won a year earlier, the builder said in a regulatory filing. The builder said the won's strength against the U.S. dollar drove down the value of its overseas dollar-denominated

Oct. 19, 2020

S. Korea considers duty-free limit on overseas direct buying

South Korea is considering placing a tax-free cap on local consumers’ direct purchases from foreign countries, to be enacted as early as 2022, officials said Monday. The move comes as the government has been eyeing ways to invigorate domestic consumption and Korea Customs Service Commissioner Roh Suk-hwan’s announcement of the idea in a parliamentary audit last week. “(From December, the) KCS will make mandatory for consumers to receive personal customs clearance codes to an

Oct. 19, 2020

Renault Samsung resumes plant operations amid pandemic

Renault Samsung Motors Corp. said Monday it has resumed the operation of its sole plant in South Korea following a monthlong suspension to control inventories amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Renault Samsung halted the operation of the Busan plant, 450 kilometers southeast of Seoul, from Sept. 25 through Oct. 18. The company said the upgrade and maintenance work has been done to the plant's production facility ahead of the manufacturing of the XM3 SUV. Renault Samsung plans to start exporting th

Oct. 19, 2020