Impeached former President Park Geun-hye’s house in Naegok-dong, southern Seoul, will be put up for sale in August at a public auction, according to local real estate auction information provider GG Auction on Tuesday. The state-run Korea Asset Management Corp. will kick off the first round of bidding on Aug. 9. If the property does not sell during the three-day bidding period, Kamco will lower the price by 10 percent and hold a second round of bidding the following week, officials sai

Global ratings firm Moody’s on Tuesday raised its rating outlook for South Korean lender NH NongHyup Bank from stable to positive, while maintaining the firm’s ratings at A1.  “The upgrade reflects our expectation that the bank’s asset soundness and capital adequacy as well as improved profitability will remain solid over the next 12-18 months,” Moody’s said in a statement.  Meanwhile, Moody’s revised up the ratings of NH Investment & S

The number of double-income households in South Korea declined the most in three years last year as the job market took a beating from the pandemic, data showed Tuesday. The number of double-income households came to 5.59 million as of October last year, down 69,000 from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. This accounted for 45.6 percent of all married couple households. It marked the largest on-year decline since 2017, when the number of such households fell by 89,

The volume of container cargo processed at South Korea's seaports jumped 11.2 percent in May from a year earlier, data showed Tuesday, in yet another sign of a recovery in trade from the economic fallout of the new coronavirus pandemic. Container cargo processed at the seaports reached 2.63 million twenty-foot-equivalent units (TEUs) in May, compared with 2.37 million TEUs in the previous year, according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The ministry attributed the growth to the COVID-

South Korea's financial market continues to be stable, but a build-up of financial imbalance remains worrisome, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Tuesday. In a regular report on financial stability, the BOK also called for vigilance against a rise in debt of households and companies amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The nation's financial stability index shot up to 22.3 in April last year, breaching the lower boundary for a crisis warning, but it has since come down to 1.8. At the end of March, outsta

The Bank of Korea (BOK) said Tuesday it has decided to issue three-year monetary stabilization bonds, in an effort to better control liquidity. The BOK said it will significantly reduce the amount of two-year monetary stabilization bonds to reduce volatility in bond markets in the wake of the sales of longer-term bonds. At the end of last month, about 80 percent of outstanding monetary stabilization bonds had maturities of two years, a BOK official said. The three-year bonds are expected t

South Korea said Tuesday it will extend a temporary removal of tariffs on imported eggs by six months until the end of the year in a bid to stabilize their high prices. The Cabinet approved a revised regulation that will allow local firms to import 36,000 tons of fresh eggs and other egg products without tariffs until Dec. 31. In January, the government removed import tariffs on 50,000 tons of egg products by the end of June in a bid to ease a supply shortage caused by the outbreak of bird flu

South Korea said Tuesday it has launched the fifth round of talks with Chile to reflect the latest industry trends into their 17-year-old free trade agreement (FTA). During the three-day virtual meeting, the two countries plan to discuss a wide array of issues ranging from labor and the environment to intellectual rights, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Seoul and Santiago will also share ideas on ways to promote the digital trade. South Korea implemented its first-ev

South Korea's producer prices gained 0.4 percent on-month in May due to a modest rise in food and energy prices, extending their monthly gains for the seventh straight month, central bank data showed Tuesday. The producer price index, a barometer of future consumer inflation, stood at 108.50 in May, compared with 108.06 a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The May index advanced 6.4 percent from the previous year, the BOK data showed. The prices of agricultural goods fell

South Korean stocks opened higher Tuesday, tracking an overnight US stock rebound that stemmed from investors' speculation that the Fed's tapering timeline may be more gradual than expected. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 21.95 points, or 0.68 percent, to trade at 3,262.74 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. The stock index rebounded after dipping 0.83 percent the previous session over the Fed's hawkish pivot last week that increased market worries about

South Korean stocks retreated Monday as the US Federal Reserve's hawkish tone last week increased market worries about an early tapering of its accommodative monetary policies. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) slumped 27.14 points, or 0.83 percent, to close at 3,240.79 points after dipping to as low as 3,225.56 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.5 billion shares worth some 17.1 trillion won ($15.1 billion), with lose

Upbit, South Korea’s leading cryptocurrency exchange, said on Monday it would take legal action against PicaProject, which accused the exchange of misusing its coins to prompt a delisting. PicaProject’s digital coin Pica was among 24 digital tokens that Upbit removed from its platform on Friday. In response, PicaProject accused the exchange of misusing the funds to the tune of 5 million Pica coins intended for marketing events when it went public in January this year. According

South Korea will ease mortgage rules for first-time homebuyers starting next month as part of a raft of real estate measures aimed at helping young people move up the property ladder, according to a real estate service provider on Monday. Applying for a mortgage will become easier for both couples and individuals seeking to purchase a home for the first time, the Zigbang report said. From July, couples with a combined annual income of less than 90 million won ($79,141) -- compared with the c

South Korea’s asset managers are counting on the global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic as vaccination gathers momentum. This, in turn, is adding fuel to Korean managers’ efforts to revisit industrial sectors that were hardest-hit by the virus impact. Shinhan Asset Management, an asset management arm of Korea’s banking group Shinhan, said Monday it plans to launch a second batch of its hybrid fund next week, in order to target companies reeling from the pandemic amid

Backed by aggressive moves to go beyond its platform business, South Korean brokerage firms have painted a rosy outlook for Kakao and raised their target prices on the company, reports showed Monday. Some analysts predicted the popular mobile messenger KakaoTalk operator’s stock price to rise as high as 200,000 won ($175.80), up from their prior target prices. The adjustment came after the company jumped to the third most valuable stock on the nation’s main board Kospi. “Kaka