SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — President Lee Jae Myung has met with a group of creatives behind the smash-hit Netflix animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” and pledged to cultivate South Korea’s cultural sector into one of the country’s core industries. Appearing on Arirang TV’s prerecorded program “K-Pop: The Next Chapter” aired Wednesday, Lee sat [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea conducted a nationwide civil defense drill on Wednesday, simulating an air raid to test public readiness and improve emergency response measures. The 20-minute exercise, organized by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, began at 2 p.m. with air raid sirens, followed by a staged alert and [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — More than half of South Korea’s midsize listed companies saw profits fall in the first half of 2025, as global economic uncertainty and weakening demand weighed on key sectors, new data show. Combined operating profit for 500 midsize firms came to 6.34 trillion won ($4.55 billion) in the [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – More than half of South Korean consumers who unknowingly purchase counterfeit goods online do not seek refunds, citing complicated procedures and small amounts of money at stake, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Korea Consumer Agency. The survey, conducted among 1,000 consumers across eight major platforms — [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean government is considering a major overhaul of how it grants pension credits for childbirth and military service, moving from a system of post-retirement adjustments to upfront support — a change that could save nearly 88 trillion won ($65 billion) in state finances over the long term, [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — A significant share of South Korean investors’ holdings in overseas-listed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are concentrated in high-risk leveraged products, raising concerns about potential losses and the need for regulatory overhaul, according to a new report by the Korea Capital Market Institute. As of June 2025, South Korean investors held [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 20 (Korea Bizwire) — Major foreign institutional investors remain wary of South Korea’s recent corporate governance reforms, citing a legacy of reversals and unmet expectations, according to feedback gathered by the Korea Corporate Governance Forum during investor meetings in Hong Kong and Singapore this month. Forum Chair Lee Nam-woo, speaking at a press [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – In a bid to strengthen its circular economy efforts, the Seoul Metropolitan Government has initiated a pilot project to promote the separate collection and recycling of paper cartons, which can be transformed into high-quality natural pulp and recycled plastics such as polyethylene. Starting this month, Seoul has installed 350 [...]
SEOUL, Aug. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s household credit hit a fresh high in the second quarter of this year, amid a rise in loans borrowed for real estate purchases, the central bank said Tuesday. The outstanding credit to households stood at 1,952.8 trillion won (US$1.4 trillion) as of end-June, up 24.6 trillion won [...]
NAJU, Aug. 19 (Korea Bizwire) — Long celebrated in Korean culture, the lotus flower has carried layered meanings across history, from scholarly admiration to religious reverence and folk traditions. Confucian scholars cherished the lotus for its purity, blooming untainted from murky ponds. In Buddhism, it symbolizes spiritual clarity — a flower rising above worldly defilements, [...]