JEONJU, South Korea, Jan. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – Claw machines are back, and arcades offering a dozen, or dozens, of the machines are found on almost every corner of busy neighborhoods in Korean cities. Jeonju, a small city in North Jeolla Province with a little over 650,000 residents, is no exception. Famous for its Hanok [...]
SEJONG, Jan. 3 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s economic growth is not creating as many jobs as before, government analysis indicated Tuesday, saddling the country with bad news when growth projections are being marked down. Numbers provided by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and Statistics Korea show the government expects 2.6 percent economic expansion [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – Forty-two percent of South Korean households believe their economic conditions will deteriorate next year, according to a survey by Gallup Korea released Friday. The survey suggested that South Korea’s consumer confidence has sharply eroded amid uncertainties in the troubled shipping and shipbuilding sectors, and an ongoing influence-peddling scandal involving [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korean household debt rose in 2016 from a year earlier as people borrowed money from banks and other financial companies to buy homes, and invest in real estate and businesses, government data showed Tuesday. The average household debt was tallied at 66.55 million won (US$56,000) as of end-March [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s consumer spending sank to a “seriously” low level in the third quarter of the year, government data showed Monday, as most households tightened their purse strings amid slowing economic growth. Slumping household consumption is widely feared to come as a further drag on Asia’s fourth-largest economy struggling [...]
SEJONG, Dec. 15 (Korea Bizwire) – North Korea’s per capita income was unchanged at 1.39 million won (US$1,179.10) last year, about one twenty-secondth of South Korea’s, government data showed Thursday. According to data by Statistics Korea, North Korea’s nominal gross national income (GNI) came to 34.5 trillion won in 2015, with its moribund economy contracting [...]
SEJONG/SEOUL, Dec. 15 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s finance minister said Thursday that Asia’s fourth-largest economy has strong economic and financial fundamentals to overcome the current headwinds stemming from the domestic political turmoil and a global economic slowdown. The recent political turbulence sparked by the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye is feared to weigh on [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The turnaround in South Korea’s exports is expected to continue at a steady pace next year, helped by moderate growth in the world economy, according to forecasts by foreign investment banks on Wednesday. Solid growth in emerging markets and a sustained rise in commodity prices are likely to increase [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 5 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s restaurant industry is suffering from worsening business conditions due to market saturation and a prolonged economic slowdown, government data showed Monday. The number of restaurants and pubs in Asia’s fourth-largest economy stood at 650,000 as of end-2014, up 2.4 percent from a year earlier, according to Statistics [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – Eight out of ten Korean small and medium-sized companies have a very unfavourable view of the current state of economic affairs in Korea. A recent survey related to the current financial environment, targeting employees in three hundred SMEs, showed that 85.7 percent thought the country was in a financial [...]