Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea fell 22 percent in January from a year earlier as chip shortages continued to disrupt vehicle production, an industry association said Monday. The number of newly registered foreign vehicles fell to 17,361 units last month from 22,321 units a year ago, the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement. "Sales declined last month as chip supply issues continued to weigh on vehicle production and there was low

South Korea's Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo will visit London and Geneva this week to explore ways to enhance trade cooperation with Britain and various international organizations, his office said Monday. During his two-day visit to London beginning Monday, Yeo is scheduled to hold an initial meeting of the South Korea-Britain free trade agreement (FTA) committee with his British counterpart to check the implementation of the bilateral trade pact and plans for negotiations for its possible revisi

South Korean stocks opened lower Monday as investors attempted to take profits from recent stock rallies. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 24 points, or 0.87 percent, to 2,726.26 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Most large caps traded lower, led by institutional sell-offs. Top cap Samsung Electronics retreated 1.62 percent, and No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix lost 2.81 percent. Leading chemical firm LG Chem decreased 3.24 percent, and pharmaceutical giant Sa

South Korea's online food market jumped more than 35 percent to touch an all-time high in 2021 amid the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Monday. The value of online food transactions in Asia's fourth-largest economy stood at 58.5 trillion won ($48.8 billion) last year, up 35.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea and industry sources. The tally covers online transactions of food, groceries, farm produce, meat and fisheries goods, as well as food delivery se

South Korea's foreign reserves shrank for the third straight month in January due to a decline in dollar-converted value of holdings in other currencies, central bank data showed Monday. The country's foreign reserves came to $461.5 billion as of end-January, down $1.6 billion from the previous month, according to the data provided by the Bank of Korea (BOK). This marked the third straight month that foreign reserves have contracted since October when the amount hit a record high of $469.2 bil

Employees at South Korean financial firms will receive up to four times their monthly salary as their bonuses for 2021, backed by booming business, sources said Sunday. Woori Bank, one of the major commercial lenders here, has recently agreed with its union to hand its employees performance bonuses worth 300 percent of their monthly salaries plus some 1 million won ($830), according to industry sources. The nation’s No.1 commercial bank by performance, KB Kookmin Bank and its long-time

The proportion of apartments bought by people in their 30s or younger reached an all-time high last year amid "panic buying" over soaring housing prices, data showed Sunday. The buyers of this age group accounted for 31 percent of the country's total apartment sales in 2021, up from 29.2 percent in 2020, according to the data compiled by the Korea Real Estate Board. The agency began compiling the related data in 2019, and the figure for the year came to 28.3 percent. In Seoul, 41.7

Goldman Sachs expects the Bank of Korea to raise its benchmark rate twice more in the second half of this year to 1.75 percent, and later continue hikes to 2.5 percent, according to a report published by the US bank Friday. “We continue to expect the rate curve to steepen along with gradual monetary policy normalization,” the report said. Korea continues to see elevated inflation but the risk is contained by moderating import prices, weakening housing prices, and measures to counte

Local bank synthesizes facial features of its human staff to create faces of its virtual staff

Experts say LG Energy Solution IPO might have faced a series of suits in US for diluting share value of its parent company, but not here

South Korean stocks climbed more than 1 percent on Friday, rising for a three-day winning streak, on the back of tech gains, analysts said. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. After a choppy session, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) surged 42.44 points, or 1.57 percent, to close at 2,750.26 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 527 million shares worth some 11.1 trillion won ($9.3 billion), with gainers far outnumbering losers 767 to 122. Institutions and

SEJONG -- The nation’s consumer prices climbed 3 percent or more for the fourth consecutive month, despite the Bank of Korea’s three interest rate hikes between August 2021 and January. Statistics Korea said Friday that consumer prices grew 3.6 percent in January, compared to a year earlier. After the growth breached a 3 percent threshold -- 3.2 percent -- for the first time in more than nine years in October, it rose to 3.8 percent in November and 3.7 percent in December. This mar

South Korea plans to sell 4 trillion won ($3.33 billion) worth of Treasury bills this month to support its fiscal policy, the finance ministry said Friday. The bills, which have a maturity of 63 days, will be sold in three separate auctions in February, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. Treasury bills are usually floated to raise money to cover short-term financial shortfalls and are generally sold with a maturity of less than a year. (Yonhap)

South Korean consumers are ramping up credit and debit card balances and their spending could exceed 1,000 trillion won ($832 billion) for the first time this year, data showed Friday. South Koreans spent 977 trillion won on credit and debit cards last year, up 10 percent from the previous year. The uptrend in spending has been the norm since 2018, when it totaled at 810 trillion won, according to the Credit Finance Association, a group of local card companies. “COVID-19 is accelerating

South Korean stocks opened sharply higher Friday, despite overnight losses on Wall Street. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) advanced 33.06 points, or 1.22 percent, to 2,740.88 points in the first 30 minutes of trading. On Thursday (local time), US stocks closed sharply lower, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq plunging 3.7 percent amid worries over tightening monetary policy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.5 percent, and the broad-based S&P 500 shed 2.4 percent.