SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Retail sales in South Korea rose 11.3 percent on-year in 2021 on the back of strong appetite for consumption and growing online transactions amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, the industry ministry said Thursday. The combined sales of local offline retailers climbed 7.5 percent on-year from the previous year, and [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s exports of autos rose to the highest point in seven years last year due to the low base effect and strong demand for eco-friendly cars, customs data showed Thursday. The country’s outbound shipments of cars came to US$42.6 billion last year, up 23 percent from the previous [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of foreign nationals staying in South Korea shrank nearly 4 percent on-year in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Korea Immigration Office said Wednesday. The number was tallied at 1.96 million as of the end of last year, a 3.9 percent decrease from 2.04 million in 2020 [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — Drug smuggling caught by South Korea’s customs agency hit a record high last year as trafficking via non-contact delivery means shot up amid the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Wednesday. The Korea Customs Service said it confiscated a total of 1,272 kilograms of drugs in 2021, up 757 percent from [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – The number of babies born in South Korea fell to a record low in November last year, data showed Wednesday, underpinning the country’s gloomy demographic situation with the chronically low birth rate. A total of 19,800 babies were born in November, down 1.3 percent from the previous year, according [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s top 30 family-controlled conglomerates have seen their stock market capitalization spike more than 30 percent over the past four years, with Samsung Group taking the top spot, a market tracker said Tuesday. The combined value of 201 listed firms belonging to the leading business groups, known as [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — Eight in 10 foreigners living in and out of South Korea positively view the country, a government survey showed Monday. The Korean Culture and Information Service (KOCIS) canvassed 12,500 non-Koreans aged 16 and more in 24 countries around the world in September and found 80.5 percent of the respondents [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — Exports of South Korea’s content industry rose 16.3 percent on-year in 2020 on the back of the global popularity of Korean pop culture, despite the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Monday. The industry’s outbound shipments stood at US$11.9 billion in 2020, compared with $10.25 billion a year earlier, according [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean imports of beer hit a five-year low in 2021 in the wake of a nationwide boycott of Japanese products, data showed Monday. The value of beer imports came to US$223.1 million last year, down 1.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the [...]
SEJONG, Jan. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of discouraged workers in South Korea touched a fresh all-time high in 2021 due to a weak job market amid the prolonged coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Monday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had 628,000 discouraged workers, the largest tally since related data tracking began in 2014, according to [...]