INCHEON, April 13 (Korea Bizwire) — Alarm bells are ringing for South Korea’s convenience stores as the Ministry of Health and Welfare has announced a plan to crack down on cigarette ads starting from July. Under the current Tobacco Business Act and the National Health Promotion Act, convenience stores are required to prevent their in-store [...]
SEOUL, April 12 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of unemployment benefit recipients reached a new monthly record in March, due mainly to the prolonged negative impact of coronavirus pandemic on the economy, government data showed Monday. According to the Ministry of Employment and Labor, the government paid job-seeking benefits, also dubbed unemployment allowance, to 759,000 [...]
SEOUL, April 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Newly elected Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon said Monday the city will look for ways to allow small businesses, hurt by prolonged COVID-19 restrictions, to operate longer hours and asked the central government to approve COVID-19 self-testing kits to support the plan. “Many neighborhood businesses, which are the backbone of Seoul’s [...]
SEOUL, April 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Fine dust emissions from coal plants more than halved over the past four-month period compared with two years earlier, data showed Monday, after the country limited their operations during the winter. Local coal plants generated 3,191 tons of fine dust from December last year to March 2021, sharply down [...]
SEOUL, April 12 (Korea Bizwire) — The government is gearing up to support the nation’s gas station industry, which is facing serial closures due to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic and the growing popularity of eco-friendly vehicles. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy recently issued a notice concerning the outsourcing of a study on how [...]
SEOUL, April 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Two Korean battery makers reached a long-awaited settlement on Sunday to resolve their bitter battery battle, clearing prolonged uncertainty in the face of toughening competition on multiple fronts amid the growing electric vehicle market. LG Energy Solution Ltd. and SK Innovation Co. said they have agreed to settle in [...]
JINDO, April 11 (Korea Bizwire) — A world-famous sea-parting festival hosted annually by the southwestern South Korean island county of Jindo will be held only as an online event this year, officials said Sunday. The 42nd edition of the Jindo Miracle Sea Road Festival, described worldwide as the “Korean version of Moses’ miracle,” will be [...]
SEOUL, April 10 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean government has issued revised guidelines on handwritten entry logs required at small businesses like restaurants for contact tracing purposes, as part of efforts to boost the use of encrypted personal numbers. In February, the government rolled out the encrypted data service to better protect privacy, but [...]
SEOUL, April 10 (Korea Bizwire) — One in four Seoul citizens turned to “revenge spending” to make up for missed shopping during the coronavirus pandemic, a study has shown. According to a Wednesday report by the Seoul Institute, a think tank for the Seoul metropolitan government, 24.3 percent of those surveyed in the first quarter [...]
SEOUL, April 9 (Korea Bizwire) — A Japanese right-wing activist indicted by South Korean prosecutors on charges of defaming former Korean sex slavery victims again failed to show up in a Seoul court Friday, resulting in an indefinite postponement of his trial process. The Seoul Central District Court opened a hearing on the case of [...]