SEOUL, April 4 (Korea Bizwire) — The net profits of listed firms on South Korea’s main bourse hit an all-time high last year, expanding 160.56 percent on-year despite the pandemic, the bourse operator said Monday. The consolidated net profit of 595 firms listed on the benchmark KOSPI totaled 156.6 trillion won (US$128.6 billion) in 2021, [...]
SEOUL, April 4 (Korea Bizwire) — Prices of South Korea’s agricultural, livestock and fisheries imports jumped nearly 32 percent in February from a year earlier, data showed Monday, putting upward pressure on the country’s inflation. The import price index for farm, livestock and fisheries products came to 112.6 in February, up 31.7 percent from a [...]
SEOUL, April 1 (Korea Bizwire) — Online shopping in South Korea rose 13.7 percent on-year in February, led by solid demand for food delivery services, electronics goods and travel services amid the pandemic, data showed Friday. The value of online shopping transactions stood at 15.4 trillion won (US$12.6 billion) in February, compared with 13.6 trillion [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Almost half of call center workers have thought about taking their own lives due to poor labor conditions and extreme emotional labor, a state human rights watchdog survey showed Wednesday. In the survey of 1,996 call center people conducted by the National Human Rights Commission of Korea from August [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — Rice farmers in South Korea posted the largest net profit in 20 years in 2021 thanks mainly to favorable weather conditions, data showed Wednesday. Rice farmers’ net income reached some 502,000 won (US$414.2) per 1,000-square-meter paddy last year, up 13.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the data [...]
SEOUL, March 30 (Korea Bizwire) — About half of South Koreans are against President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s plan to move the presidential office out of Cheong Wa Dae, while some 44 percent support the idea, a poll showed Wednesday. According to the poll of 1,004 adults, conducted by pollster Embrain Public on Sunday and Monday, 51.9 [...]
SEJONG, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Debt held by wage workers in South Korea grew at a much faster pace in 2020 from a year earlier amid the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Bank and non-bank loans extended to paid workers in Asia’s fourth-largest economy averaged 48.6 million won (US$39,800) per person [...]
SEOUL, March 29 (Korea Bizwire) — Retail sales in South Korea rose 4.7 percent in February from a year earlier on the back of growing online consumption amid the worst COVID-19 wave, the industry ministry said Tuesday. The combined sales of 25 major offline and online retailers reached 12.19 trillion won (US$9.99 billion) last month, [...]
SEOUL, March 28 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly three in 10 South Korean exporting companies have seen their financial situation worsen this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and other negatives, a poll showed Monday. The survey on 102 manufacturing exporters out of the country’s top 1,000 firms by sales showed 31.4 percent of the respondents [...]
SEJONG, March 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s energy imports spiked more than 85 percent this year on soaring international prices, government data showed Monday, burdening the country’s trade balance and consumer inflation. The country’s imports of oil, natural gas and coal came to US$38.49 billion from Jan. 1-March 20, up 85.4 percent from a [...]