SEOUL, Jan. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s finance ministry said Thursday owners of two homes will pay less taxes if they dispose of one of them during an extended period amid a slump in the home market. Under the plan, such homeowners will not be subject to heavier taxation if they offload one of [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) – The city government of Seoul on Thursday lifted a citywide 35-story limit on apartment buildings to allow more flexible city planning and more colorful landscapes, officials said. The city will abolish the blanket cap that had been applied to Grade-3 residential buildings across Seoul and permit the maintenance of [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will lift property-related regulations in most of Seoul and metropolitan areas as the country’s housing market is at the risk of a deep freeze due to strict regulations and higher lending rates, the land ministry said Tuesday. The government will remove Seoul and its adjacent metropolitan areas [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign direct investment (FDI) pledges to South Korea hit an all-time high last year, surpassing US$30 billion for the first time, data showed Tuesday. Foreigners pledged to invest $30.45 billion here last year, up 3.2 percent from a year earlier, according to the data by the Ministry of Trade, [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — The value of shares held by South Korea’s 33 major business group chiefs tumbled nearly 30 percent in 2022 amid a bearish stock market, a corporate tracker said Tuesday. The business tycoons held stocks worth a combined 45.9 trillion won (US$35.9 billion) as of the end of December 2022, [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 1 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s exports rose 6.1 percent in 2022 from a year earlier to reach an all-time high, but it suffered the largest ever trade deficit on high global energy prices, the industry ministry said Sunday. The country is forecast to see a 4.5 percent fall in exports in 2023 [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — Banks’ rates charged on new household loans in November hit the highest level in over a decade, affected by the central bank’s aggressive rate increases to tame inflation, data showed Friday. Banks’ household lending rate applied to new loans last month stood at 5.57 percent per annum on average, [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will raise first-quarter electricity rates by the largest margin in about four decades on high global energy costs and mounting losses of the state utility company, the industry ministry said Friday. The government decided to jack up the electricity rates for consumer and industrial use by 13.1 [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s consumer prices grew at the fastest pace in more than two decades in 2022, government data showed Friday, as the country felt the pinch of soaring prices of raw materials and energy sources following the Russia-Ukraine war. Consumer prices rose 5.1 percent on-year in 2022, accelerating from [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean stocks ended the year 2022 sharply down, marking the first annual loss in four years on global monetary tightening and economic recession woes. On Thursday, the last trading session of this year, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) closed at 2,236.40 points, down 1.93 percent [...]