Most Popular
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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Bae Doo-na shares portraying Korean identity in Hollywood's 'Rebel Moon'
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S. Korea votes in favor of Palestinian bid for UN membership
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[From the Scene] Monks, Buddhists hail return of remains of Buddhas
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Medical schools granted enrollment quota flexibility for next year
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Yoon offers first one-on-one meeting with opposition leader next week
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France rejects opening Paris flight routes to T'way Air, deals blow to Korean Air merger
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Chinese man behind drug scam targeting teens nabbed in Cambodia
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Iran fires air defense batteries in provinces as sound of explosions heard near Isfahan
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[Graphic News] French bulldog most popular breed in US, Maltese most popular in Korea
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S. Korea to allow reopening of ASF-hit farms
South Korea said Wednesday it will allow pig farms hit by the African swine fever (ASF) last year to resume their operations, as no additional cases among domestic pigs were reported for about 11 months. The move will pave the way for 261 farms in the Gyeonggi and Gangwon Provinces, which have been closed due to the massive outbreak in 2019, to gradually raise pigs again, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. The ASF swept through pig farms in the inter-Korean borde
Sept. 9, 2020
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Job losses extend into August amid pandemic, unemployment rate up to 3.1%
SEJONG -- South Korea lost about 274,000 jobs in August, marking a decline in the number of the employed for the sixth consecutive month, as the coronavirus pandemic hammered job markets, data showed Wednesday. The country's jobless rate rose by 0.1 percentage point on-year to 3.1 percent in August, with the number of employed people falling to 27.08 million, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. It marked the longest fall since the eight months of decline posted in 2009 amid the
Sept. 9, 2020
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Fitch lowers S. Korea growth forecast 0.2% on COVID-19 fallout
Fitch Ratings lowered the growth forecast for South Korea this year by 0.2 percentage point due to the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak, the credit appraiser said Tuesday. The downgrade, would mean Asia's fourth largest economy will backtrack 1.1 percent this year from 2019. Fitch earlier predicted Seoul's economy to post negative growth of 0.9 percent. This is slightly better than the 1.3 percent contraction announced by the Bank of Korea last month. Fitch predicted that while the impact o
Sept. 8, 2020
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BOK to buy up to W5tr in state bonds to combat market uncertainties
South Korea’s central bank announced Tuesday that it plans to directly purchase state bonds worth some 5 trillion won ($4.2 billion) by the end of this year to combat uncertainties stemming from the resurgence of the coronavirus here. “With the resurgence of the coronavirus leading to bigger market uncertainties, the government is expected to issue additional bonds,” the Bank of Korea said in a statement. “This is a preemptive move to alleviate risks from a possib
Sept. 8, 2020
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Seoul’s housing prices show signs of cooling: finance minister
Home prices in Seoul and the neighboring area have shown some signs of stabilizing on the back of the government’s price-curbing measures, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Tuesday. He also rolled out plans to provide some 60,000 new public apartments in greater Seoul in 2021-2022, with subscriptions due to start next year. “A month passed since taking effect, the Aug. 4 (housing) supply measures appear to be paying off to a certain extent,” the
Sept. 8, 2020
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Number of self-employed people plunges amid deepening pandemic
The coronavirus pandemic has hit small businesses in South Korea. The number of self-employed people decreased at an alarming rate in July compared with a year earlier, data showed Tuesday. According to data compiled by the Korea Small Business Institute and Statistics Korea, the country had 5.548 million self-employed people registered as of last month, down 127,000 from the previous year. The sharp on-year drop was nearly five times as steep as in July last year, when the number of se
Sept. 8, 2020
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S. Korea's economy tipped to retreat more than expected over pandemic: KDI
South Korea's economic recession is expected to be deeper than expected this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the pace of recovery may be delayed as there is no end in sight for the pandemic, a state-run think tank predicted Tuesday. Korea Development Institute (KDI) downgraded the nation's economic growth outlook to a contraction of 1.1 percent this year, a sharp downward revision of a 0.2 percent expansion in its May forecast. The nation's economy is expected to expand 3.5 percen
Sept. 8, 2020
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S. Korean shipyards retain top spot in new orders in August
South Korean shipbuilders took the No. 1 ranking in new shipping orders in August for the second consecutive month on the back of orders for liquefied natural gas carriers, industry data showed Tuesday. According to the data provided by global market researcher Clarkson Research Service, the Korean shipbuilders' new orders amounted to 630,000 compensated gross tons (CGTs), or 23 ships, in August, which took up 73 percent of the global new orders totaling 860,000 CGTs, or 36 ships, last month.
Sept. 8, 2020
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Asiana deal set to collapse due to pandemic this week
HDC Hyundai Development Co.'s planned takeover of Asiana Airlines Inc. appears likely to collapse this week as the property developer failed to narrow differences with the airline's creditors over acquisition terms, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. The deal, if it falls through, would become the country's second botched deal in the coronavirus-hit airline sector this year, following Jeju Air Co.'s cancellation of its plan to acquire smaller rival Eastar Jet Co. in July. K
Sept. 8, 2020
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S. Korea, UAE to forge cooperation in renewable energy
SEJONG -- South Korea and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) agreed to step up cooperation in the renewable energy sector, Seoul's finance ministry said Tuesday. The agreement was reached at an online meeting between Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki and the UAE's economy minister, Abdulla Bin Touq Al Marri, on Monday, the ministry said in a statement. South Korea and the UAE have held regular talks on economic cooperation since 2006, but Monday's meeting was the first talks since the coronavirus pand
Sept. 8, 2020
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S. Korea’s welfare spending to grow W40tr by 2024
South Korea’s mandatory spending on welfare is projected to increase 40 trillion won ($33.6 billion) by 2024, amid growing concerns of the coronavirus pandemic and heavier tax burdens, a government budget proposal showed Monday. Social welfare spending would gain an average 7.6 percent annually from this year to 2024, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance’s four-year fiscal management plan submitted to the National Assembly. Spending for this year stood at 119.7 trilli
Sept. 7, 2020
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Kakao inks deal to build data center south of Seoul
South Korean internet giant Kakao Corp. said Monday it will establish a data center in a city south of Seoul in an industrial-educational cooperation project. Under a deal with Hanyang University and the Gyeonggi provincial government, the data center will be built on the university's campus in Ansan, some 30 kilometers south of Seoul, at a cost of 400 billion won ($337 million). Kakao Corp., which operates the country's most-used mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said ground will
Sept. 7, 2020
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Savings banks' H1 net up on increased interest income
South Korean savings banks reported 14.5 percent growth in their combined net profit for the first half of this year from a year earlier due to a sharp hike in interest income, data showed Monday. The combined net income of the 79 savings banks stood at 684 billion won ($576 million) for the January-June period, compared with a profit of 597.6 billion won a year earlier, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Their interest income rose 9.5 percent on-year to 3.2 tril
Sept. 7, 2020
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S. Korea's tourism income hits 17-year low in Q2 due to coronavirus pandemic
South Korea's tourism income hit a 17-year low in the second quarter of this year due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Monday. For the April-June period, the country posted $1.19 billion in tourism income, down 78.6 percent from $5.57 billion over the same period last year, according to data by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). From three months earlier, it tumbled 65.5 percent from $3.46 billion. It is the lowest quarterly amount since 2003, when South Korea's t
Sept. 7, 2020
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S. Korea to draw more than W7tr in 4th extra budget amid prolonged COVID-19 measures
The government, ruling party and presidential office vowed Sunday to draft an additional budget worth more than 7 trillion won ($5.88 billion), mostly to fund another set of disaster relief subsidies to deal with the economic fallout from COVID-19. The decision, which rekindled concerns about the country’s fiscal soundness, came as the densely populated greater Seoul area faced an extended week of social distancing to contain the second wave of the pandemic. Representatives of the go
Sept. 6, 2020
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Idle money in S. Korea surpasses W1,200tr mark
The volume of short-term floating capital in South Korea surpassed the 1,200 trillion won ($900 billion) mark, as the government seeks to funnel the liquidity into a 20 trillion fund tied to the Korean New Deal package, data showed Sunday. The amount of cash and other short-term capital totaled 1,273.6 trillion won as of end-June, data compiled by the Bank of Korea and the Korea Financial Investment Association showed. By asset, the M1 money supply, which is essentially cash, came to 1058.1 t
Sept. 6, 2020
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Finance minister expresses concerns over COVID-19, economic impact in talks with Fitch
South Korea's top economic policymaker expressed concerns over the resurgence of the novel coronavirus in the country hurting growth and said efforts are under way to bolster the economy during an online meeting with a global credit appraiser, the finance ministry here said Saturday. The teleconference between Minister of Economy and Finance Hong Nam-ki and James McCormack, the general manager at Fitch Ratings, took place late Friday, with a focus on actions being taken by Seoul to stem the s
Sept. 5, 2020
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S. Korea sets aside W170b for COVID-19 vaccine development next year
The Ministry of Economy and Finance said Friday it has assigned a budget of 170 billion won ($142.8 million) for 2021 to develop a homegrown vaccine against the novel coronavirus. Designed to support local companies’ research and development of the COVID-19 vaccine, the government will inject 31.9 billion won into clinical trials of candidate materials for the drug and 7.4 billion won for non-human clinical trials, the ministry said. Also,131.4 billion won will be spent on a seri
Sept. 4, 2020
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S. Korea to provide selective cash relief to small biz to cushion COVID-19 impact
South Korea on Friday said it will implement a second round of state emergency relief funds targeted at small business operators and beleaguered families most affected by an explosive surge in COVID-19 cases. “Discussions are underway to identify the most damaged small business sectors. (The government) plans to announce a comprehensive plan for the second round of emergency relief grants as early as next week,” Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom said Friday in an interview with
Sept. 4, 2020
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Easy recovery of Korea’s manufacturing unlikely: BOK
It might take longer than expected for South Korea’s manufacturing productivity to rebound to pre-pandemic levels, even if exports recover, the central bank said Thursday. “It has been found that a slowdown in manufacturing productivity is tied to a drop in exports, but we were unable to find a relationship between growth in exports and short-term improvement in manufacturing,” the Bank of Korea said in its regular economic report. “Even if the global economy recovers,
Sept. 3, 2020