SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Home prices in South Korea rose at the fastest pace in nine years in 2020 despite a set of government measures to rein them in, data showed Tuesday. Housing prices in Asia’s fourth-largest economy gained 5.36 percent last year from a year earlier amid low interest rates and ample [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — Online shopping in South Korea hit a record high in November as more people bought products via e-commerce platforms amid the new coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. The value of online transactions stood at 15.1 trillion won (US$13.8 billion) in November, up 17.2 percent from the previous year, according [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s exports of agriculture products reached an all-time high of US$7.57 billion last year on the back of strong demand for kimchi and processed foods, data showed Tuesday. The record amount represents a 7.7 percent rise from the previous year, according to data compiled by the Ministry of [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans’ spending on liquor and cigarettes reached an all-time high in the third quarter of 2020 amid the coronavirus outbreak, central bank data showed Tuesday. Local households spent 4.3 trillion won (US$3.96 billion) on alcohol and cigarettes in the July-September period, up 6.2 percent from a year earlier, [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean carmakers’ sales fell 5 percent last month from a year earlier as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to weigh on demand, industry data showed Monday. The five carmakers in South Korea — Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Motors Corp., GM Korea Co., Renault Samsung Motors Corp. and SsangYong Motor [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s wine imports soared to a record high in 2020 as more people enjoyed drinking and partied at home due to the coronavirus outbreak, government data showed Monday. South Korea imported US$239 million worth of wines in the January-November period last year, much higher than the $204 million [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s population fell year-on-year for the first time in 2020, census data showed Sunday, with a record low number of births getting surpassed by deaths to cause a natural decrease. According to the latest census figures released by the Ministry of Interior and Safety, South Korea had 51,829,023 [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s exports of environment-friendly vehicles jumped 40 percent in 2020 from a year earlier on growing demand for less-emitting cars, the trade ministry said Sunday. Exports of all-electric and hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicles climbed to US$4.6 billion last year from $3.3 billion a year ago, according to the [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea racked up nearly 11 million users on fifth-generation (5G) wireless networks as of end-November, data showed Thursday. The country had 10.9 million 5G users last month, accounting for 15.5 percent of the total 70.5 million mobile subscriptions, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Science and [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 31 (Korea Bizwire) — Over 26 percent of North Korean defectors living in South Korea sent remittances back to the communist country this year, a survey showed Thursday. According to the poll conducted by the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights (NKDB) and NK Social Research (NKSR), a survey agency specializing in [...]