IMF, Finance Ministry split on focus of capital control measuresKorea should raise its policy rate faster to discourage volatile capital inflows into stocks and boost the effectiveness of capital barriers currently in place, Subir Lall, Internaional Monetary Fund's Mission Chief for Korea said.The head of the IMF delegation here assessed Korea’s capital flow management “effective,” but said more c

June 19, 2011

Kia’s MorningAuto Build, the world’s most circulated car magazine from Germany, selected Kia’s Morning as the best compact car in the world, The Hyundai Kia Automotive Group said.In a comparative analysis of the world’s compact cars, the magazine selected Kia’s latest version of Morning city car as the best model for driving comfort, followed by Hyundai’s i10.Other candidate models included Fiat P

Mobility June 19, 2011

GM Chevrolet cars featured on “Transformers: Dark of the Moon”GM Korea Co. is offering customers an opportunity to apply to watch a pre-screening of “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” in advance of its opening to the Korean public, the company said. The third installment of Michael Bay’s Hollywood blockbuster will be available for pre-screening by Monday June 20 on Chevrolet’s event website at www.e

Mobility June 19, 2011

Marketing chief says new SM7 beats rivals, firm recovering from Japan quake impactThe revamped SM7, to be released within three months, will be successful in the country’s upper largesized sedan market with its improved driving comfort, Frederic Artaud, marketing chief at Renault Samsung, predicted Sunday. “As showcased and proved at the Seoul Motor Show 2011, Renault Samsung is highly confident o

Mobility June 19, 2011

Emerging markets will experience continued capital inflow into the region regardless of the expiration of the second round of quantitative easing in the U.S., Robert Rubin, former secretary of the U.S. treasury said in Seoul on Wednesday.“There is a tremendously strong orientation now toward emerging market countries in the investment world. And that has nothing to do with the end of QE2,” Rubin s

June 15, 2011

Korea Aerospace Industries on Wednesday announced its expansion plan to become the comprehensive aircraft manufacturing company, with details to go public at the end of this month.“KAI is the country’s only comprehensive producer of aircraft materials since it was merged with Samsung Daewoo and Hyundai’s aircraft sectors in October 1999,” president Kim Hong-kyung told reporters at a news conferenc

June 15, 2011

Trend is likely to continue, hurting economic competitiveness Core productiveThe most productive workforce aged between 25 and 49 has begun shrinking for the first time in recorded history, data showed on Tuesday, marking a trend likely to continue and weigh down on competitiveness of the economy.The Statistics Korea said the core productive population stood at 19.54 million as of end-2010, down 3

June 14, 2011

Deploying an industry wide business ethics program for bankers and regulators is imperative to uproot irregularities and cut long-held collusive ties, the chief Asia economist at HIS Global Insight said in Seoul on Tuesday.“Ethics need to be taught and shared among peer groups. Professionals above graduate level often have never had chances to train themselves on what is right and wrong in specifi

June 14, 2011

The portion of the workforce in their 50s has frequently exceeded that in their 30s in the past two years, as the country quickly becomes an aging society.Statistics Korea said Monday that the number of baby boomers working in their 50s had exceeded the number of workers in their 30s four times since October 2009, when the older group outnumbered the younger workers for the first time. The proport

June 13, 2011

Central bank expects 3.9% inflation and 4.5% growth this yearThe Bank of Korea on Friday raised its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 3.25 percent, surprising the market that expected another rate freeze to accommodate slowing exports and surging debt burdens on households. The monetary policy committee at the central bank lifted the seven day repurchase rate for the third t

June 10, 2011