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 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – In a sign of growing financial strain on South Korea’s middle and lower-income households, credit card loans, often a last resort for quick cash, have reached unprecedented levels this year. According to data released on September 18 by the Credit Finance Association, the outstanding balance of card loans, including debt [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – As South Korea prepares for the launch of Wegovy, a highly anticipated weight loss medication, next month, questions are arising about its coverage under private health insurance plans. Wegovy, produced by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk and famously touted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk as his weight management secret, is [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Excess funds held by South Korean households has fallen for eight quarters in a row amid high inflation and interest rates, data showed Wednesday. The monthly surplus of a local household came to 1.01 million won (US$753.3) per month on average in the second quarter, down 1.7 percent from [...]