SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – Government officials discussed Friday ways to supply public housing in the greater Seoul area through the use of idle state-owned land in order to meet the growing need for new homes in the capital region, according to the finance ministry. The meeting, attended by officials from relevant ministries and [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Culture Minister Chae Hwi-young on Friday visited Jongmyo Shrine in central Seoul with the head of the nation’s heritage agency and vowed to “take every possible measure,” including revising laws, to prevent high-rise buildings from being built directly across from the shrine. The visit came a day after the Supreme [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s food safety regulator plans to introduce stricter labeling standards for decaffeinated coffee following growing concerns that many products marketed as “decaf” still contain significant amounts of caffeine. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) announced Thursday that it will revise national labeling rules to allow coffee [...]
SEJONG, Nov. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s agriculture minister said Wednesday that restaurant companies should be required to inform customers when they reduce product sizes, as public anger grows over so-called “shrinkflation” — the practice of cutting portions while keeping prices the same. “It is a matter of consumers’ right to know,” Agriculture Minister Song [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly half of running jackets tested in South Korea lost their water-repellent performance after several washes, a government consumer watchdog said Wednesday. The Korea Consumer Agency tested eight popular running jacket brands and found that four of them showed weakened water repellency after five washes. The test rated water repellency [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — A majority of South Koreans say they do not trust the national pension system, according to a new survey released Wednesday by the Korea Employers Federation (KEF). In the poll of 1,007 adults conducted by Mono Research, 55.7 percent said they did not trust the National Pension Service, compared [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s National Pension Service (NPS) will overhaul its 1,200 trillion won (US$905 billion) investment governance structure to enhance the professionalism and agility of how the world’s third-largest pension fund manages its growing assets. Under the new system, the NPS will split its single Investment Committee into two separate [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s ruling party is moving swiftly to legislate an extension of the retirement age to 65 by the end of the year, backed by the nation’s two largest labor unions. But the country’s major business groups are warning that the proposal could amplify management uncertainty and deepen structural problems [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top financial regulator vowed Wednesday to reconsider compensation standards for investors in the so-called Belgian Fund scandal if evidence of mis-selling is confirmed, as part of a broader push to strengthen consumer protection in the financial sector. Lee Chan-jin, governor of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), made the [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea plans to invest more than 900 billion won, or about $622 million, over the next seven years to develop advanced medical devices that officials described as “game-changing,” the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said Wednesday. Under the initiative, which runs from 2025 through 2030, the government will [...]