The government will recruit more tech experts and personnel in a bid to beef up the safety of its high-speed train service that has suffered a series of accidents over the past few months, the Transportation Ministry said.The ministry added that the government will operate a safety-management unit independently for the KTX high-speed train service. It will also shorten the period of replacing majo

Industry April 14, 2011

Korean financial companies’ derivatives trading jumped 36.2 percent on-year in 2010 on increased transactions of stock-linked investment products, the financial regulator said Thursday.The total trading volume of such derivatives as bond and stock futures and options at home and abroad came to 6.7 quadrillion won ($6.1 trillion) in 2010, compared with 4.9 quadrillion won in the previous year, the

April 14, 2011

Korea is seeking to boost its business presence in Africa by establishing three new business centers to support Korean businesses and African importers there, a state-run trade agency said Wednesday.The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency said it had opened one of the new Korea Business Centers in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa on Tuesday.The agency is also set to open a KBC in Accra, th

April 13, 2011

“Do you have any of the credit cards listed here? You can get up to 20 percent discount,” a restaurant cashier asks a diner settling her bill, indicating a wall chart.Kim Lee-soo, 22, shuffles quickly through a stack of cards in her bulging wallet. After passing on five or six of them, she finally finds one that matches the list and claims the full discount.It’s a typical scene in Korea, where peo

April 13, 2011

April 12, 2011

Korea is likely to see its economic growth rate fall more than 2 percentage points if international oil prices top the $200 level, a report showed Tuesday.The report comes amid worries that the shortfall of oil production in Libya and continued unrest in the region may send crude prices even higher and dent the growth of economies around the world. According to the report by Britain-based Standard

April 12, 2011

Domestic orders of Korean builders plunged 17 percent in February from a year earlier due to a prolonged slump in the local property market and a drop in orders from the public sector, a trade association said Monday. The local builders’ domestic orders came to 5.09 trillion won ($4.69 billion) in February, compared with 6.15 trillion won tallied a year earlier, the Construction Association of Kor

Industry April 12, 2011

Korea’s quarantine inspections of imported farm produce rose 10 percent on-year in the first quarter mainly due to greater local demand for vegetables and fruits, the government said Tuesday.The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said import inspections were carried out on 43,793 shipments in the January-March period, compared to 39,746 during the same period a year earlier.“Un

April 12, 2011

Korea’s leading steelmaker POSCO is expected to report an operating income of less than 1 trillion won ($917 million) for the January-March period due to a price freeze amid soaring raw materials costs, analysts said Tuesday.POSCO, the world’s third-largest steelmaker, is set to report its first-quarter earnings next Friday. The steelmaker has been reporting a quarterly operating profit of more th

April 12, 2011

Korea’s Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun will leave for the United States this week to attend a Group of 20 (G20) meeting, which will focus on pending global economic and financial issues, officials said Tuesday.The G20 finance ministers’ meeting will kick off in Washington on Thursday for a two-day run, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance. Yoon will leave for the meeting on Wednesda

April 12, 2011

Debts owed by Korea’s public corporations surged by 34.2 trillion won ($31.6 billion) in 2010 mainly due to outlays in large development projects, the government said Monday.The finance ministry said the combined debt of 27 leading public corporations rose 14.4 percent on-year to 271.9 trillion won last year, with their debt-to-equity ratio hitting 157 percent, up from 144 percent in 2009.Their de

April 11, 2011

Korea and Indonesia will hold a working-level meeting next month on ways to further boost bilateral economic cooperation, Seoul’s finance ministry said Monday.The meeting is a follow-up on a December summit between Korean President Lee Myung-bak and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in which they agreed to boost bilateral cooperation on weaponry development, energy, infrastructure and

April 11, 2011