SEOUL, Dec. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s stock market has endured a stretch of whiplash in recent weeks, but low-volatility and high-dividend investment products have emerged as rare winners amid the turbulence. According to data released Wednesday by the Korea Exchange, the TIGER Low Volatility ETF rose 7.1 percent from Nov. 3 to Dec. [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s major business lobby warned that companies may face nearly 27 trillion won (US$20.4 billion) in carbon-credit purchasing costs over the next five years under the government’s newly announced emissions trading allocation plan. The climate ministry swiftly rejected the estimate, calling it an exaggerated projection based on flawed assumptions. [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Amid heightened foreign-exchange volatility this year, South Korea’s major banks have taken markedly different approaches to managing currency risk, newly released filings show. According to third-quarter disclosures from the country’s four largest lenders — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana and Woori — all maintained “long” positions in foreign currency, meaning they [...]
President Lee Jae-myung on Dec. 3, marking the first anniversary of the martial-law crisis, declared, “We will complete the Revolution of Light and build a true nation of popular sovereignty.” In a special national address titled “First Anniversary of the Revolution of Light” delivered at the presidential office in Yongsan that morning, Lee said, “I [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — President Lee Jae-myung on Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the failed Dec. 3 coup attempt by declaring that the South Korean people “have every right to receive the Nobel Peace Prize” for defending democracy against an illegal military intervention. In a nationally televised address titled “First Anniversary of [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Seoul’s luxury housing market posted one of the world’s sharpest price increases over the past year, rising more than 25 percent and ranking second among major global cities, according to new data released Tuesday. In its latest Prime Global Cities Index, British property consultancy Knight Frank reported that prices for [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — A new study suggests that while health apps and online wellness advice have proliferated in South Korea, a significant share of the population—especially older adults—lacks the ability to properly access, interpret and use digital health information. Researchers at Samsung Medical Center’s Clinical Epidemiology Research Center and the Quality of Life [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Artificial intelligence–powered home appliances have rapidly moved from novelty to necessity in South Korea, with online reviews of such products increasing more than 250-fold over the past five years, according to new industry data. A study released Wednesday by CEO Score, a corporate data research firm, found that reviews of [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — A majority of South Koreans say they feel unsafe about the risk of personal data breaches, reflecting rising anxiety amid a surge in hacking incidents and expanding digital services, according to new government data. The latest Social Survey from the National Data Office shows that 57.6 percent of respondents last [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s construction downturn is continuing to weigh heavily on the nation’s banks, with major lenders reporting persistently high levels of bad loans tied to the troubled sector. According to third-quarter disclosures released on Wednesday, the country’s five major banks — KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NH NongHyup — [...]