KB Financial Group Inc., South Korea's largest banking group by assets, will set up a task force to prepare for an upcoming preliminary bidding for KDB Daewoo Securities Co., the country's No. 2 brokerage, industry sources said Thursday.  The task force will be formed by next week and comprised of around 10 officials, including the company's brokerage and investment officials, and wealth management experts, according to the sources.  "Access into Daewoo Securities' detailed data is impossible be

South Korea has faced a critical barrier in exports to China over the past decade as the Asian superpower has enhanced its policy to curb imports of intermediate goods, a Bank of Korea research report claimed Wednesday.Korea had enjoyed huge shipments of intermediate products, including knockdowns, before completion of assembly in China, which actively utilized its labor workforce at dirt-cheap rates from the late 1970s to the late 1990s, said the central bank report.It said the giant importer,

South Korea's rice production is expected to rise slightly in 2015 from last year due to greater yield per cultivated land, the agriculture ministry said Wednesday.The country's rice output is forecast to reach 4.258 million tons, up 0.4 percent from 4.241 million tons harvested in 2014, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs."Overall output is expected to increase marginally as the average yield from each unit area of 10 hectares is predicted to rise," the ministry sai

Household loans extended by local lenders continued to grow at a fast clip last month, central bank data showed Wednesday, amid strong demand for homes partly helped by record low interest rates.Outstanding household loans extended by local banks reached 615.8 trillion won ($536.13 billion) as of the end of September, up 6.3 trillion won from the previous month, according to the data from the Bank of Korea.The monthly gain marks a slight slowdown from a 7.7 trillion won rise in August but a larg

South Korea's jobless rate fell in September as more people were hired in the manufacturing, business support services and hospitality sectors, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3.2 percent last month, down from 3.4 percent in August.The number remained unchanged from a year earlier.The seasonally adjusted jobless rate for September was 3.5 percent, also down from the 3.6 percent tallied for the previous month."Manufacturi

Loans extended to households by local lenders and financial institutions grew at a faster pace in August, apparently due to a rise in demand for home mortgages, central bank data showed Tuesday.  Outstanding household loans by local banks and non-banking institutions reached 773.1 trillion won ($674.84 billion) as of end-August, up 9.8 trillion won from a month earlier, according to data from the Bank of Korea.  The August pace accelerated from July when outstanding household loans gained 3.3 tr

Import prices in South Korea continue to drop in September, extending their on-year decline to a 37th straight month, central bank data showed Tuesday.  Import prices, in local currency terms, fell 13 percent on-year last month, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea.  The rate, however, slowed slightly from a 13.6 percent on-year drop in the previous month.  The decline was largely attributed to a cut in import prices of oil and petroleum products.  In September, import prices

The slump in private consumption and exports has undermined small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of the capacity utilization of their factories, a bank-based think tank said Monday.A survey by IBK Economic Research Institute on 3,169 SMEs showed that their factory operating rate posted 70.2 percent in August, down 1.2 percentage points from a year earlier. Many of the respondents cited their huge inventories for the low rate.The factory operating rate, which peaked at the yearly average o

Outward expansion of South Korea's research and development has not led to meaningful improvements in productivity, raising the need to boost the effectiveness of related investments, official data showed Monday.  Asia's fourth-largest economy ranked No. 6 in R&D investment in 2013, but it still suffered from a chronic deficit in the technology trade, with the quality of materials being produced lagging behind those of its rivals, according to the National Assembly Research Service, state data a

South Korea will hold a fresh round of talks on a multinational free trade agreement covering Asia and Oceania this week, following the recently concluded Trans-Pacific Partnership led by the United States, the trade ministry said Sunday.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the upcoming negotiations of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the 10th of its kind, will be held in Busan, a southern port city, from Oct. 12-16.The RCEP negotiations involve 16 countries of South K

South Korea's home transactions dipped in September from a year earlier mainly due to the Chuseok holiday that reduced the number of working days available to make purchases, the government said Sunday.In September, the number of housing purchase transactions reached 86,152, a 0.6 percent dip from a year earlier, and down 8.5 percent compared to August, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. Transaction data is one of the key indicators of economic activity, with more purchases

The outlook for South Korea's construction, information technology and electronics industries is bright for the fourth quarter on real estate deregulation and the strong performance of chipmakers, a leading business body said Sunday.In its latest industry outlook, the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry said the construction industry will likely have "not bad" business conditions in the current quarter thanks to the government's property deregulation and brisk government investment.In August, t

The South Korean economy is expected to expand 2.8 percent in 2016 from this year, fueled by the gradual recovery in both domestic demand and exports, a leading private economic think tank said Sunday.In its 2016 economic outlook, the Hyundai Research Institute predicted Asia's fourth-largest economy to grow 2.7 percent in the first half of next year and 2.8 percent in the second half.HRI's full-year projection is 0.3 percentage point higher than its growth estimate of 2.5 percent for this year.

The ASEAN-ROK Forest Cooperation will launch the AFoCo Forest Week 2015 on Monday to celebrate its third anniversary, officials said Sunday.The event, whose theme is “mobilizing forest and people together for greener Asia,” is to be held at the MVL Hotel in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, from Oct. 12-16.Participants will discuss issues on reforestation, rehabilitation through landscape restoration and enhancing local livelihood through an eco-friendly, participatory means.Nearly 200 participants rep