SEOUL, Oct. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The Bank of Korea (BOK)’s first interest rate cut in 38 months highlighted the urgent need for South Korea to ease interest burdens on households and businesses to prop up sagging domestic demand despite concerns over rising home prices and household debts, experts said Friday. The BOK lowered its [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Weak domestic consumption and investment have hampered the South Korean economic recovery despite strong exports, a state-run think tank said Thursday. “The South Korean economy is experiencing limited improvement as the recovery of domestic demand, especially in construction investment, is delayed, despite favorable conditions in exports,” the Korea Development [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign investors sold the largest amount of Korean stocks in over 3 years in September amid escalating geopolitical risks and skepticism over the artificial intelligence (AI) sector, central bank data showed Thursday. Offshore investors sold a net US$5.57 billion worth of local stocks last month, following $1.85 billion worth [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top four conglomerates accounted for more than 40 percent of the country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) in 2023, data showed Wednesday. The combined sales of the four family-controlled groups — Samsung, SK, Hyundai Motor and LG — reached 980.5 trillion won (US$729 billion) in 2023, accounting [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will be included in a key global government bond index run by FTSE Russell, starting in November next year, the London-based organization has said, a decision expected to help it attract significant foreign investment. The country will be added to the FTSE Russell’s World Government Bond Index [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 2 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s consumer prices slowed to the lowest level in 3 1/2 years in September, falling below 2 percent for the first time since early 2021, data showed Wednesday. Consumer prices, a key gauge of inflation, rose 1.6 percent on-year last month, compared with a 2 percent increase a [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea should realign its export structure by boosting the portion of the service sector while reducing dependence on the manufacturing segment amid digital transformation and the artificial intelligence era, a central bank report said Friday. The Bank of Korea (BOK) said the country’s manufacturing sector accounted for 27 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has imposed a fine of 1.1 billion won on Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project that collected iris scans from about 30,000 South Korean users without proper legal grounds and transferred the data overseas in violation of privacy laws. The PIPC announced on September 26 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) slashed the growth outlook for the South Korean economy to 2.5 percent this year, Seoul’s finance ministry said Wednesday. The latest figure marked a 0.1 percentage point fall from its projection presented in May and is on a par with the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – A single report from global investment bank Morgan Stanley has sent shockwaves through the South Korean stock market, underscoring the outsized influence of foreign financial institutions on the country’s equities. On September 20, shares of SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, closed at 157,100 won after plummeting as [...]