SEOUL, Oct. 16 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial industry may have reached the point of excess where its growth will only undermine further economic development. According to the Korea Institute of Finance, credit lines at South Korean financial institutions tend to concentrate on unproductive household loans and small businesses that combine to hamper financial [...]
SEJONG, Oct. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of South Korean employees in their 30s and 40s suffered the biggest fall since 2009, government data showed Sunday, in the latest sign of sluggish employment amid an economic slowdown. The data compiled by Statistics Korea showed that the average number of employed people in their 30s [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – Accumulated peer-to-peer (P2P) loans in South Korea are estimated at over 4 trillion won (US$3.57 billion) as of the end of August, data showed on Wednesday. P2P lending refers to a new type of loan extended to individuals or businesses through social network services and the Internet, covering [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s soaring housing prices, like those in other Asian countries, can cause downside risks for the broader economy, a report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Sunday. In the updated version of the Asian Development Outlook, the international development financial institution warned that elevated housing prices threaten [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s propensity to consume fell to a 13-year low in 2017 as households tightened their purse strings amid a sluggish economy, central bank data showed Thursday. The average consumption propensity, or the ratio of total private and government spending to disposable income, stood at 78.9 percent, down 0.2 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) – The frozen job market in South Korea is showing no signs of thawing. Disappearing part-time jobs at restaurants, wholesale and retail businesses are deteriorating the outlook for young people, as unemployment approaches the rock bottom felt during the financial crisis in the late 1990s. The employment data for August [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s dependence on large companies for economic growth deepened in 2017, with global tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. alone accounting for nearly 15 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The combined sales of Samsung and the nine other largest companies by turnover [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — The richest people in South Korea earned nearly 1,000 times more than the lowest wage earners last year, a parliamentary report said Sunday, highlighting the country’s widening income disparity. The average earned income of the top 0.1 percent bracket reached 660 million won (US$590,000) per person last year, according [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – Consumer sentiment has turned pessimistic in South Korea, hitting a new 17-month low. The Composite Consumer Sentiment Index (CCSI) for August plunged to 99.2, down 1.8 points from the previous month, according to a survey by the Bank of Korea (BOK) on Aug. 28. This marks the lowest CCSI score [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — The nominal income of South Koreans belonging to the lower 40 percent of income earners in the second quarter of the year indicated the worst-ever drop recorded in the nation’s history when considering all previous second quarter data. Meanwhile, the nominal income belonging to the top 20 percent of [...]