SEOUL, March 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Online shopping in South Korea rose 11.5 percent in January from a year earlier, with the proportion of transactions via mobile devices reaching a record high, amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, data showed Thursday. The value of online shopping transactions stood at 16.54 trillion won (US$13.74 billion) in January, [...]
SEOUL, March 3 (Korea Bizwire) — Nearly seven in 10 South Koreans saw their income fall in the wake of COVID-19, a survey showed Thursday. In the online survey of 2,016 people aged 18 or above by the Korea Institute of Public Administration from Nov. 15-22, 68 percent said their average monthly income was lower [...]
SEOUL, March 2 (Korea Bizwire) — South Koreans’ use of internet banking services soared 18 percent on-year in 2021 as customers preferred non-contact services amid the coronavirus pandemic, central bank data showed Monday. The daily use of online banking services, including mobile banking, reached 17.32 million cases last year, up from 14.68 million a year [...]
SEOUL, March 2 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean institutions’ investment in foreign securities touched a new all-time high in 2021 amid bullish overseas stock markets, central bank data showed Wednesday. The outstanding value of foreign securities held by local institutional investors stood at US$402.72 billion as of end-December last year, up $29.97 billion, or 8 [...]
SEOUL, March 2 (Korea Bizwire) — Two-thirds of South Korea’s listed firms have sharply increased their 2021 dividends in an apparent bid to appease shareholders amid a bearish stock market, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. About 67 percent of 853 companies, which have announced their 2021 dividends as of Monday, have decided to raise their [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 28 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s dependency on Japanese materials and parts fell to an all-time low last year following Tokyo’s control of exports of key products bound for Seoul, the industry ministry said Monday. Imports of Japanese materials, parts and equipment came to US$39.5 billion in 2021, accounting for 15.9 percent of [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 28 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea ranked fifth in terms of the global vehicle production last year, retaining the spot for the second consecutive year, amid efforts to minimize the fallout from the pandemic-caused global chip shortages, a report showed Monday. The combined vehicle output by South Korean carmakers, including Hyundai Motor Co. [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s fisheries output rebounded last year from the previous year on the back of increased fish stocks and expanded fishing grounds, data showed Friday. Total fisheries output amounted to 3.82 million tons last year, up 2.9 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea. The 2021 tally [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 25 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s total arable land dropped for the ninth consecutive year in 2021 as rice paddies shrank amid falling consumption of rice, data showed Friday. The country’s arable land totaled 1.55 million hectares — slightly more than three times the size of the U.S. state of Delaware — as [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 24 (Korea Bizwire) – COVID-19 accounted for one in five to six hospital transfers by the 119 emergency medical service in Seoul last year, the city government said Thursday. According to the Seoul Metropolitan Fire & Disaster Headquarters, there were a total of 551,647 emergency ambulance dispatches in the capital last year and [...]