SEOUL, Feb. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of Chinese nationals entering South Korea fell sharply following measures to contain the new coronavirus, government data showed Saturday. After peaking at 18,743 on Jan. 13, the number of Chinese entrants plunged around 94 percent to 1,093 on Thursday, according to the data announced by Korea Immigration [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Foreigners’ favorable feelings toward South Korean cultural content marked an overall improvement last year on the strength of the continued popularity of “hallyu,” or the Korean Wave, according to a poll released Saturday by a government agency. The survey of 8,000 people in 17 countries who experienced Korean cultural [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of Chinese nationals entering South Korea is declining, the justice ministry said Thursday, following tighter monitoring of people arriving from the neighboring country amid a spike in the number of new coronavirus cases here. According to government data, 1,404 Chinese entered South Korea on Wednesday, down 92.6 [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — Retail sales in South Korea rose 6.6 percent in January from a year earlier mainly on demand for holiday gifts, data showed Thursday, along with the growing popularity of sanitation products amid the spread of the new coronavirus around the globe. The combined sales of 26 major offline and [...]
SEJONG, Feb. 27 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of discouraged workers in South Korea touched an all-time high in 2019, data showed Thursday, pointing to a tough employment situation amid an economic slowdown. Asia’s fourth-largest economy registered a monthly average of 533,000 discouraged workers last year, up 1.6 percent from a year earlier, according to [...]
SEJONG, Feb. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s total fertility rate hit an all-time low in 2019, government data showed Wednesday, a clear sign of its population decline down the road. The country’s total fertility rate, which refers to the average number of children a woman bears in her lifetime, came to 0.92 last year, [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 26 (Korea Bizwire) — About one out of five North Korean defectors experienced discrimination in South Korea last year mostly due to “cultural” differences, a survey showed Wednesday. According to the survey conducted by the Hana Foundation, a state-run agency that helps resettlement of North Korean defectors, 17.2 percent of 3,000 defectors polled [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s electricity generation fell for the first time in more than two decades in 2019 amid an economic slowdown and favorable weather conditions, data showed Tuesday. The amount of electricity generated by the nation’s power plants came to 562,239 gigawatt hours (GWh) last year, down 1.5 percent from [...]
SEJONG, Feb. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s total arable land dropped 0.9 in 2019 from a year earlier as some rice paddies gave way to residential areas and public facilities, data showed Monday. The country’s arable land totaled 1.58 million hectares last year, down 15,000 hectares from the previous year, according to the data [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean market for coffee drinks expanded more than 2 percent in 2019 thanks mainly to strong sales of bottled products, a market tracker said Monday. Sales of coffee drinks came to 1.32 trillion won (US$1.1 billion) last year, up 2.2 percent from the previous year, according to [...]