Bracing for the prolonged fallout from COVID-19, South Korea will drastically expand the employment promotion subsidy and alleviate foreign exchange liquidity rules for financial companies, the country’s chief fiscal policymaker said Wednesday. While presenting the central government’s latest market-stabilizing measures, he also said individual subsidy plans may create confusion, implying disapproval of moves by some local governments to distribute an “anti-disaster basic

Economy March 25, 2020

South Korea has urged advanced nations to refrain from excessive restrictions on human activities and material resources amid the global novel coronavirus spread, citing the economic repercussions, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance on Tuesday. Finance ministers and central bank governors from the Group of 20 member nations on Monday met virtually to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak. The meeting was also attended by representatives from the International Monetary F

Economy March 24, 2020

South Korea on Monday said it was carefully monitoring the financial market situations in New York and London, lest the global spread of COVID-19 lead to system breakdown in major economies and spill over to the global financial market. It also vowed to immediately initiate an exclusive task force to keep round-the-clock tabs on the macroeconomic financial situation here, further tightening guard against the snowballing fallout.　 “The global real economy will contract more dramatically

Economy March 23, 2020

Citibank Korea has seen the pool of high-net-worth clients grow on the back of its unique wealth management program, which focuses on strict product screening for the sake of investor security. The number of wealth management clients at the local subsidiary of the New York-based bank soared 124 percent on-year in January, according to officials. Also, its Aggressive Model Portfolio yielded a 19.8 percent return last year, while its Moderate Model Portfolio returned 17.2 percent, despite the

Market March 22, 2020

Speculation is growing here that South Korea will compile an additional supplementary budget after the April general elections to deal with the extended economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. Last Tuesday, the National Assembly approved an extra budget bill worth 11.7 trillion won ($9.4 billion), the country’s largest ever, in response to the coronavirus crisis. While the total amount of the budget remained unchanged from the government’s initial suggestion, some planned

Economy March 22, 2020

The Asian Development Bank’s upcoming annual meeting, originally slated to be held here in May, will be postponed to September in light of the coronavirus spread, according to ADB and the South Korean government. “As COVID-19 continues to spread around the globe, (ADB and Korea) have agreed to postpone the 53rd ADB Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors from the originally planned May 2-5 to Sept. 18-21,” the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in a release. “We p

Economy March 20, 2020

Dark tourism has risen in recent years to respond to the contemporary generation’s drive for unique, impactful and meaningful experiences. In Europe, the Auschwitz concentration camp is a classic example of dark tourism, where traces of wartime genocides and ethnic cleansing are preserved. A more recent case is Ground Zero in New York’s Manhattan, where the World Trade Center Twin Towers had stood before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred in 2011. As for the Korean Peninsula,

Travel March 19, 2020

In an emergency move to counter the latest market disturbance caused by COVID-19, South Korea’s government on Wednesday activated a “phase one contingency plan,” expanding the cap on foreign exchange forward positions of banks. It also said that it will reduce the airport landing fees for airplanes and exempt highway tolls for express buses, as a relief measure for the transportation industry which took the hardest blow from the epidemic spread. Starting Thursday, local ba

Economy March 18, 2020

In an emergency response to the latest stock market plummeting in the United States, the South Korean government on Tuesday warned that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic could possibly expand into an “unprecedented” economic crisis. “We should take into account that the spread of COVID-19 may lead to an unprecedented complex crisis situation for both the real economy and the financial market,” said Kim Yong-beom, first vice minister of finance, in an urgent meeting wit

Economy March 17, 2020

In addition to Moon Jae-in government’s policy actions so far to curb housing prices, the escalating fallout of COVID-19 may daunt South Korea’s overheated real estate market, observers noted Monday. The key question is whether the impact of the pandemic will escalate to a global financial crisis. Last week, the Bank of Korea pointed out that COVID-19 has been exerting a more direct and drastic impact on the stock market, compared to past major epidemics. Throughout the outbre

Market March 16, 2020

South Korea’s financial authorities on Friday announced a six-month ban on short-selling in the local stock market, effective Monday, in an effort to reduce market volatility amid the spread of COVID-19. The hurried action came as the country’s stock market nose-dived earlier the same day, triggering a temporary trading halt in both the main bourse Kospi and the secondary Kosdaq. “Short-selling of all listed stocks on (the main bourse) Kospi and (secondary) Kosdaq and (ter

Economy March 13, 2020

Weighed by the escalating impact of COVID-19, South Korea’s central bank hinted Friday that it may lean toward an earlier-than-expected policy rate cut as early as within this month. “Members of the Monetary Policy Board are currently contemplating the necessity to hold an extraordinary panel meeting,” the Bank of Korea said in a release. The monetary policy institution’s latest move came as Asia’s fourth-largest economy saw its stock market nosedive amid inve

Economy March 13, 2020

South Korea saw its jobless rate decline and job creations extend the uptrend for several months straight in February, while some service industries have started reflecting the negative impact of the new coronavirus, government data showed Wednesday. However, with the infection rate taking a steep upturn, Asia’s fourth-largest economy is likely to face the full-scale fallout in its employment indexes starting this month. Korea added 492,000 new jobs in February from a month earlier,

Economy March 11, 2020

South Korea vowed Tuesday to tighten regulations on stock short selling to stabilize the market amid increased volatility caused by the spread of the new coronavirus, and also the sudden drop in global oil prices. “As a market stabilizing action, (the government) will alleviate the requisites for (designating) overheated short selling and expand the transaction ban period (for these stocks),” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki was quoted as saying in a minist

Economy March 10, 2020

In an effort to secure the supply of face masks and curb excessive profiteering, the government on Monday announced it will suspend punishment for monopolizers who voluntarily report themselves within a grace period. The action came on the sidelines of a rationing system that allows people to buy two protective masks per week from pharmacies on designated days. “We judged that the top priority is to secure as many (protective) masks as possible that may be distributed through p

Economy March 9, 2020