The Korea Herald

Government struggling to find capable workers in Sejong City

Sept 24, 2013

The government is having a hard time finding capable workers who are willing to work in the new government complex in Sejong, officials said Tuesday.The difficulty in finding workers apparently stems from the fact that the new government complex is located in the newly built city of Sejong, 120 kilometers south of Seoul, meaning new employees will probably have to move here unless their home is already nearby.According to officials from the Fair Trade Commission, the commission had sought to hir
Meeting global demand key to thriving in creative economy

Sept 24, 2013

Korea’s top industry policymaker stressed Tuesday that creative economy is aimed at realizing ideas to harness existing technologies and market trends.“Creative economy is no longer an ambiguous concept. It is to realize ideas harnessing existing technologies and market trends,” Industry Minister Yoon Sang-jick said in the keynote speech at the Creative Economy Forum in Seoul. Herald Corp. hosted the one-day conference on the theme of how small and medium-sized companies can best utilize creativ
Korea’s workforce to dwindle next decade: BOA Merrill Lynch

Sept 23, 2013

Korea and China are likely to suffer from problems of a typical aging society, since their working-age population is projected to shrink over the next 10 years, an economist at a major U.S. investment bank predicted.A research report of Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Hak Bin Chua was quoted by broadcaster CNBC as saying that “the next decade will be very different from previous decades when most of Asia was still experiencing demographic divides, including China and Korea.”Chua asserted
Korea elected council member of standardization body

Sept 23, 2013

South Korea was elected as a council member of the International Organization for Standardization, an international standard-setting organization composed of representatives from various nations, at its general assembly in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Sept. 18-20, officials said Monday.The Industry Ministry said being part of the ISO council ― currently comprised of 20 countries including the United States, Germany, Japan, Britain, France, China and Russia ― would help Korea boost its status in th
Korea’s debt-to-GDP hits record high in Q2

Sept 22, 2013

　 Korea’s outstanding debt of its public, corporate and household sectors reached a record high in proportion to its gross domestic product in the second quarter of this year, according to data from the Bank of Korea. The debt neared 290 percent of Korea’s annual economic output, exceeding the debt-to-GDP ratio of 285.2 percent recorded in the second quarter of 2009, during the global financial crisis. Asia’s fourth-largest economy had maintained the ratio at 220 percent until 2003
Corporate strategies for low-growth economy

Sept 17, 2013

Uncertainty is weighing on the global economic recovery and there is mounting consensus that the decelerating growth of recent years is a prelude to prolonged sluggishness. After reaching 5.2 percent in 2010, global GDP growth dropped to 4 percent in 2011 and further to 3.2 percent in 2012. Forecasts for this year see the global economy rising around 3 percent.Protracted low growth appears inevitable since it will take considerable time for countries that had implemented extreme measures during
Seeking a strategy for investment promotion

Sept 17, 2013

With the prolonged global economic slowdown, the paradigm for economic growth in the three Northeast Asian countries of Korea, Japan and China is shifting. China and Japan are both putting emphasis on the domestic market. China is attempting to vitalize the domestic market in the process of moving from quantity- to quality-oriented growth, while Japan seeks an exit from deflation and to revive its economy through Abenomics.If we look closely, however, a new form of movement can be detected from
S. Korea's producer prices fall for 11th straight month in Aug.

Sept 17, 2013

South Korea's producer prices declined for the 11th straight month in August due to on-year retreats in oil costs and the local currency's gain against the U.S. dollar, the central bank said Tuesday. The producer price index, a barometer of future consumer inflation, slid 1.3 percent in August from a year earlier, compared with a 1 percent on-year decline in July, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).On an annual basis, the producer prices have fallen every month since October 2012 when such pri
Knowledge transfer from universities to industry key to creative economy

Sept 16, 2013

The Korean government is increasingly looking toward universities to help keep the country’s economic growth sustainable.The hope is that innovative research by universities will generate new products, create jobs and eventually new industry. Korea, however, should be more “careful and realistic” about future economic growth, says Nicholas Vonortas, a leading expert on science and technology policy.“Korea is in a major transition period now, but I don’t think that many people realize that when t
Time to revamp education system

Sept 16, 2013

The government is making a number of changes to the current education system in order to harness each person’s individual creativity and ideas, said Vice Education Minister Na Seung-il.“In a quest for creative talent, we should reduce the immense stress students experience from excessive competition for college entrance exams and the heavy burden of studying,” he said in an email interview with The Korea Herald.Korea’s economy is already undergoing a paradigm shift from “fast follower” to “first
Future economic growth depends on creative talent

Sept 16, 2013

Government to strengthen education in software and convergence studies, support innovative start-ups
[Photo News] New office on non-trade barriers

Sept 16, 2013
Korea moves to form East Asian trade bloc

Sept 16, 2013

Keeping an eye on the U.S.-led Trans-Pacific Partnership forum, the Korean government is also engaging actively in the talks to form an economic bloc in Northeast and Southeast Asia.The second round of the ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership is scheduled to be held from next Monday to Friday in Brisbane, Australia.Headed by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy trade negotiating director Woo Tae-hee, the delegation is to include officials from the Ministry of Strategy and
Government seeks to spend 100 trillion won on welfare

Sept 16, 2013

The government will give utmost priority to boosting welfare and job creation in its spending plans next year, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said Monday.In a briefing to the National Assembly’s Strategy and Finance Committee, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hyun Oh-seok said that the Park Geun-hye administration seeks to invest more than 100 trillion won ($92.4 billion) in various welfare projects next year, by far the biggest investment in the sector by a single Korean governm
S. Korea moves to tackle non-tariff trade barriers

Sept 16, 2013

South Korea has set up a new office specifically tasked with dealing with non-tariff trade barriers raised by other countries, the government said Monday, in a move to boost its exports.The move comes as the government is expected to announce a list of plans for dealing with non-tariff trade barriers at the end of this month.A recent survey showed nearly three out of every 10 small- and medium-sized enterprises here that export their goods and services to Japan have experienced some type of non-