On July 5, the Korean government raised the minimum amount of electricity that generation companies should produce from renewable sources to 5 percent of each generator’s annual output for 2018, 6 percent for 2019 and 7 percent for 2020, a 0.5-1.0 percentage-point increase from its previous targets under the Renewable Portfolio Standard. The government also said that it aims to boost generators’ direct sales of renewable-sourced electricity to residential and industrial consumers. These initiati

On July 4, Korea’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced that foreign direct investment commitments in the first six months of this year increased by 18.6 percent from a year earlier to $10.5 billion, equal to 0.8 percent of 2015 GDP. This is credit positive for Korea (Aa2 stable) because, combined with government initiatives to restructure the Korean economy, these commitments will support economic growth, which has been negatively affected by dampened global demand. Total FDI commit

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s July exports so far have plunged 21.6 percent from a year ago, fueling worries that exports will continue to spiral in the second half of the year. According to the Korea Customs Service, exports between July 1 and July 10 came in at about US$ 10.35 billion, down 21.6 percent compared to the same period last year. From Jan. 1 to July 10, the country’s exports dropped 10.5 percent from a year ago to come in at US$ 252.1 billion. Until June, South Korea’s monthly expor

[THE INVESTOR] South Korea’s National Pension Service -- the world’s third-largest public pension fund -- has selected Blackrock and GCM Grosvenor as general partners for managing 1 trillion won worth of hedge funds.This is 0.2 percent of the 500 trillion won (US$428.2 billion) of NPS’ assets under management. BlackRock is the world’s largest asset management firm that more than US$ 4.65 trillion AUM. GCM has invested over US$45 billion in hedge funds, private equity, real estate and infrastruct