SEJONG, May 21 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s household income rose in the first quarter from a year earlier, but the income gap between the haves and have-nots widened, as the employment situation of the low-income bracket worsened amid the coronavirus pandemic, a report showed Thursday. The average household earned 5.35 million won (US$4,357) per [...]
SEOUL, May 20 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s household debt grew at the slowest pace in one year in the first quarter, central bank data showed Wednesday, amid a sharp decline in spending apparently caused by the new coronavirus outbreak that is expected to hurt the whole economy. Outstanding household credit came to 1,611.3 trillion [...]
SEOUL, May 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Individual investors are flocking to direct stock investment, choosing to bet on their own picks over brokerage houses’ funds, data showed Tuesday. Outstanding margin loans came to 9.95 trillion won (US$8.14 billion) as of Friday, up 10.1 percent from a month ago, according to the data from the Korea [...]
SEOUL, May 18 (Korea Bizwire) — POSCO Engineering & Construction Co., the construction arm of South Korea’s leading steelmaker, POSCO, will team up with a small and medium-sized company to develop technologies that can drastically reduce dust generation, a major headache at construction sites. The company held an agreement ceremony on Friday with Hyundai Fine [...]
SEOUL, May 13 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign investors continued to net sell South Korean stocks in April amid the coronavirus pandemic but boosted their purchase of local bonds, central bank data showed Wednesday. Foreigners net sold US$4.32 billion worth of local shares in the month, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). [...]
SEOUL, May 13 (Korea Bizwire) — Credit card spending in South Korea fell at a slower pace in April than a month earlier amid signs of the coronavirus outbreak easing, data showed Wednesday. Credit card purchases approved by the country’s eight card firms — Shinhan, Samsung, KB Kookmin, Hyundai, BC, Lotte, Woori and Hana — [...]
SEOUL, May 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Household debt growth in South Korea slowed, but corporate loans spiked by the largest amount in history amid the growing fallout from the new coronavirus outbreak, central bank data showed Tuesday. Fresh bank loans extended to local households came to 4.9 trillion won (US$4 billion) in April, according to [...]
SEOUL, May 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Individual investors accumulated 50 trillion won (US$41 billion) in stocks and stock investment deposits, holding greater influence over the benchmark index since the beginning of the year, data showed Monday. From Jan. 2 to May 8, retail investors bought a net 30.8 trillion won worth of local shares, 26.1 [...]
SEOUL, May 11 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreign investors have ramped up their investment in South Korean bonds this year amid the country’s relatively favorable economic conditions, data showed Monday. Offshore investors held 140.9 trillion won (US$115 billion) worth of listed government and corporate bonds as of end-April, up 17 trillion won from the end of [...]
SEJONG, May 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s per capita national debt has surpassed 14 million won (US$11,500) and is expected to go up due to a spending hike meant to mitigate the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, data showed Sunday. The data posted on the website of the National Assembly Budget Office showed [...]