SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — KB Kookmin Bank, one of South Korea’s major lenders, has decided to suspend new household loans for home purchases for the rest of 2025 amid government efforts to cool an overheated property market and curb household lending, officials said Friday. New applications for mortgage loans for home purchases will [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 21 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea has nearly quadrupled its investment in “bio big data” over the past five years, reflecting the government’s drive to strengthen the country’s competitiveness in next-generation drug development and digital healthcare. According to a new report by the National Center for Biotechnology Policy Research, government investment in the sector [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – The government on Thursday designated the southern industrial city of Gwangyang as a special crisis-response zone, as its steel-dependent economy faces mounting strain from global oversupply and intensifying trade protectionism, the industry ministry said. Gwangyang, about 350 kilometers south of Seoul, was chosen because the steel sector accounts for [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Ministry of the Interior and Safety said Thursday it will launch a special task force to quickly complete an internal investigation into ministry officials who allegedly participated in or aided the Dec. 3 martial law attempt, as the government moves to restore public trust and reinforce constitutional norms. [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s customs authorities on Thursday announced plans to reduce paperwork requirements and speed up the customs clearance process for imports, a move aimed at lessening regulatory burdens on local businesses. Under a revised law currently undergoing administrative notice, procedures for re-importing returned goods will be simplified, according to [...]
SEJONG, Nov. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of family members serving as unregistered executives at family-run conglomerates, or chaebol, has increased, raising concerns about a growing gap between authority and accountability, the antitrust regulator said Wednesday. Since 2010, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has reviewed and released annual reports on the ownership and governance [...]
SEJONG, Nov. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s finance minister said Wednesday that signs of an economic rebound are becoming increasingly evident, pointing to aggressive fiscal spending and more targeted policy management as key drivers. At a meeting of economy-related ministers in Sejong, Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol said consumer spending has begun to strengthen, helped [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s medical community is escalating its confrontation with the Lee Jae-myung administration and the National Assembly over a set of health-care policy proposals that physicians argue threaten patient safety and undermine established medical standards. At the center of the dispute are three initiatives: mandatory ingredient-based prescriptions, stricter oversight of [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) on Monday launched a new centralized platform designed to bring unprecedented transparency to financial interactions between pharmaceutical and medical device companies and healthcare professionals. The “Expense Report Management System,” formally opening Nov. 17, is the country’s first unified public database allowing [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 17 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea plans to impose stricter disclosure requirements on listed companies’ executive compensation and expand access to shareholder voting information, in a move aimed at improving market transparency and strengthening investor rights, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) announced Sunday. Under the reform package — titled Measures to Improve Corporate Disclosure [...]