SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s consumer price index declined for the very first time last month, a sign of deflation. Experts point out that declining consumer prices may become the so-called ‘new normal’ for South Korea. Statistics Korea reported that South Korea’s consumer prices reached a growth rate of 0.5 percent this [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea needs to act boldly to avoid deflation, a Nobel Prize-winning economist said Monday, as Asia’s fourth-largest economy has plenty of fiscal space and favorable budget positions. Paul Krugman, an economics professor at the City University of New York’s Graduate Center, said South Korea should undertake fiscal stimulus. [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s growth potential is expected to fall at a faster rate than earlier anticipated largely due to the aging of the population that will also lead to a cut in the number of eligible workers, a central bank report said Monday. The country’s growth potential for the 2016-2020 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 8 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s consumer price growth is anticipated to hit a record low level this year due mainly to declines in prices of agricultural and petroleum products, market watchers said Sunday. South Korea’s consumer prices inched up 0.5 percent over the January-August period, marking the lowest figure since Statistics Korea [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Recently, commercial banks have been offering a series of “travel-themed” installment savings products. Subscribing to related products has become popular as account holders can receive airline mileage or travel-related benefits along with basic interest at maturity. On Wednesday, KEB Hana Bank unveiled its one-year installment savings product “My Trip,” [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial regulator said Thursday it will soften corporate disclosure rules to make shareholder activism more active. Under the 1991 rule, if an investor who owns 5 percent or more of shares of a listed firm buys or sells more than 1 percent of stocks in the company, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s financial regulator said Wednesday it will ease some rules on financial firms investing in fintech firms, as part of its effort to promote the fintech industry. The new guideline, unveiled by the Financial Services Commission (FSC), will expand the scope of fintech firms for which financial firms’ [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean pet boom is leading to big changes in living environment for their owners. These changes are attributed to the growth in popularity of ‘petfam’, a combination of pet and family, in which people consider their dogs and cats as family members. Petfam shows great interest in [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — More than half of all construction workers in South Korea are foreigners. While Koreans comprise most of the workforce in major phases of construction, tasks that involve using physical labor are mostly completed by foreign workers. The Construction and Economy Research Institute of Korea (CERIK) reported that there were [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — Daily credit card spending in South Korea continued to climb in the first half on increased online purchases, central bank data showed Monday. Credit card holders spent an average 1.9 trillion won (US$1.57 billion) a day in the January-June period, up 5.7 percent from a year earlier, according to [...]