When the Financial Services Commission suspended four mutual savings banks on Sunday, it said there would be no more industry-wide restructuring. Instead, it promised to deal with each savings bank as soon as it shows signs of insolvency.No one was mistaken if this pledge sounded familiar. When it suspended the operations of seven savings banks for six months last September, the commission said public concerns about another round of restructuring were unjustified because there would be no such d

Prosecutors arrested Park Young-joon, a former vice minister of knowledge economy, and took him into custody Monday. The charges against him were influence-peddling and taking 100 million won in bribes from the developer of a Seoul shopping mall.His arrest followed the issuance of a warrant by a judge at a Seoul district court, who was quoted as saying he was considered a flight risk and that he could try to destroy evidence. Before being taken into custody, Park told reporters that he had nothi

Vladimir Putin’s return to the Russian presidency comes at a delicate time when North Korea’s move toward a third nuclear test is alerting neighboring powers, with the U.S. and China engaged in an increasing military rivalry in the Pacific region.Putin, who began his third presidential term Monday, may well expect this situation to give him more leeway in expanding Russia’s strategic presence in Northeast Asia.He had kept his grip on power while serving as prime minister during the past four yea

A recent survey by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry showed local small and medium-sized enterprises are far less competitive than SMEs in Germany, Japan and other industrialized countries.If the competitiveness of small companies in advanced nations with a strong manufacturing sector is put at 100, that of Korea’s SMEs scored 59.6, according to the survey of 151 economic experts here.Among the key problems cited by the experts for holding back domestic small firms were a lack of innova

The government is ratcheting up efforts to stimulate investment by domestic and foreign companies to sustain economic growth and strengthen the nation’s weakening growth potential.In recent months, the economy has lost much of its growth momentum due to a worsening external environment. In the first quarter of the year, the economy expanded 2.8 percent from a year ago, the smallest increase since the 1 percent gain in the first three months of 2009.Yet the first-quarter performance was much less

Korea has started building two new nuclear reactors, reaffirming its unwavering commitment to developing atomic energy. The government hailed the 1,400-megawatt reactors as “a new milestone” in Korea’s nuclear technology development, as their key components, such as the man-machine interface and reactor coolant pumps, were all designed and produced locally. The two reactors, both based on the nation’s Advanced Power Reactor design, will be built at the Uljin power plant on the southeastern coast

Three more North Korean companies have recently been placed on a U.N. blacklist of corporations banned from international trade. On Wednesday, a U.N. Security Council committee decided to add the companies to the blacklist as sanctions on North Korea against its April 13 rocket launch.The U.N. decision followed China’s consent to sanctions on the three companies. The number fell far short of the 40 or so North Korean companies that the United States, South Korea and other countries had reportedl

South Korea, which relies on external trade for growth, needs to promote free trade. The need for free trade is shared by China. Still, they find formidable obstacles to their pursuit of a free trade agreement.Growth in South Korea’s trade with China, which is larger than combined Korean-U.S. and Korean-EU trade, will certainly accelerate when many of the tariff and non-tariff barriers are removed or lowered. It is only natural for South Korea, which has concluded free trade agreements with both

The OECD has recently published two reports on Korea that offer valuable advice to Korean politicians as well as government policymakers. One is the latest OECD economic survey of Korea while the other is the first OECD assessment of the Korean government’s urban policy. The OECD Economic Survey of Korea 2012 focuses on the two key challenges confronting the Korean economy ― sustaining economic growth in the face of rapid population aging and improving social cohesion by reducing inequality and

The United Progressive Party is in crisis. An internal investigation team has confirmed that the party’s process of selecting proportional representation candidates for the April 11 parliamentary elections was riddled with irregularities. The left-wing minor party won a total of 13 seats in the election, seven from local districts and six by proportional representation. Of the six proportional lawmakers-elect, three were selected through online and offline voting within the party, while the othe

A criminal investigation into a corruption scandal involving a shopping mall developer took a new turn when prosecutors summoned Park Young-joon, a former vice minister of knowledge economy and one of President Lee Myung-bak’s closest protgs, for questioning Wednesday.An inquiry into Park’s potential involvement in the scandal followed the arrest of Choi See-joong, a former chairman of the Korea Communications Commission, who was often dubbed Lee’s political mentor. Choi is suspected of taking h

The process of writing the 2013 budget bill starts this month, with government agencies set to have submitted budget requests by May 31. The budget officers at the Ministry of Strategy and Finance will then review the requests, start consultations with the agencies and fix budget allocations ― a time-consuming process that will continue until a final report is prepared for submission to the president on Sept. 21.The guiding principle for the 2013 budget bill is to ensure the government lives wit

The National Human Rights Commission has offered a glimpse into how the North Korean regime survives its extreme destitution. The independent rights monitoring agency issued its first report on North Korean gulags, where hundreds of thousands of people perceived as threatening to the regime are living lives worse than death.Horror stories defying imagination fill the book, which is based on the testimonies of 60 refugees from the North with first-hand experiences in four concentration camps and

May is the best sightseeing season in Northeast Asia. The economic rise of China pushes the tourism market in the region to an explosive growth. Combining these two factors, a tourism rush is expected across the region in the coming weeks. Yet, we have a sense of unease about the state of readiness in this particular service sector.These days, the Japanese, Chinese and South Koreans are thronging to each other’s tourism resorts and large cities, joined by American, European and Southeast Asian t

Conscience tells us that active military service to defend the nation is more than a duty ―it is the privilege of healthy Korean men. So, it is dismaying to hear people talk about the “privilege” of being exempted from military service for various reasons. Further puzzling is the fact that this privilege is officially recognized for persons who “raised the national prestige” with outstanding results in international sports and arts competitions.The idea behind this peculiar system practiced for