South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co. said Wednesday it has delivered the world's first container ship powered by liquefied natural gas (LNG) to a Singaporean shipping company. The LNG-powered container ship with a capacity of 14,800 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) is one of six ships to be built by Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries for Singapore's Eastern Pacific Shipping in a 2018 deal. The other ships will be delivered by the third quarter of 2022, the company said

Six financial groups in South Korea plan to make public their governance structures, financial health and other details on their websites later this month, the financial regulator said Wednesday. The integrated regulatory filing is meant to provide a clear picture to financial consumers on the financial group's risk factors, according the Financial Services Commission (FSC). The move could also help "improve the financial groups' risk management capabilities through market discipline,&qu

Uzbek-based Korean cotton pulp manufacturer secures global market presence after 10 years, officials say

South Korea said Wednesday it plans to hold a virtual meeting with Myanmar to share ways to expand their economic ties and overcome economic jitters sparked by the new coronavirus pandemic. Industry Minister Sung Yun-mo plans to meet his Myanmar counterpart, Than Myint, later in the day through a videoconference to exchange ideas on pending economic issues between the two countries, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The gathering was originally scheduled to take place i

South Korea's exports of coronavirus test kits rebounded in August as the world grappled with a resurgence of the novel coronavirus, data showed Wednesday. In the first 20 days of August, exports of virus test kits stood at $106 million, compared with $123 million in July. Exports of virus test kits in August are expected to rise 10 percent from a month earlier, according to the customs data. South Korea's exports of coronavirus test kits had declined since their peak in April. Accordin

South Korea's energy consumption fell nearly 4 percent in the first half of the year due to an economic slowdown sparked by the coronavirus outbreak, a report said Wednesday. The country's overall energy consumption came to 112.6 million tons of oil equivalent (TOEs), down 3.6 percent from the same period last year, according to the report from the Korea Energy Economics Institute. The first-half drop follows a 0.6 percent on-year decline for all of 2019, which was the first annual drop in 10

South Korea has recouped 69.5 percent of the public funds it spent to bail out troubled financial and other firms since the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis, the financial regulator said Wednesday. South Korea had retrieved 117.2 trillion won ($99.3 billion) out of the 168.7 trillion won in state funds spent to save firms from bankruptcy as of the end of June, according to the Financial Services Commission (FSC). The recovery rate marks a slight rise from the 69.2 percent recorded at the end

South Korean stocks opened a tad lower Wednesday as investors attempted to cash in recent gains. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 3.55 points, or 0.15 percent, to 2,440.03 in the first 15 minutes of trading. The index came to a muted start after a 0.65 percent gain in the previous session hitting an over two-year high. In Seoul, most large caps traded lower. Market bellwether Samsung Electronics lost 0.49 percent, with No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix shedding 1.59 percent. In

Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung’s idea for a government loan relief program -- in which the state would forgive and pay off interest on loans for those in the low income bracket -- was met with criticism from the banking sector. Lee recently said via Facebook that a “welfare state must take responsibility for the financial risks of ordinary citizens,” and “a welfare loan system where everyone can receive low-interest, long-term loans with the government financially

South Korean shares extended their winning streak to a fourth session on Tuesday to close at a more than two-year high, helped by advances in tech heavyweights and progress in coronavirus vaccine development. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 15.67 points, or 0.65 percent, to close at 2,443.58. Tuesday's closing marks the highest since June 12, 2018, when the index closed at 2,468.83 points. Trading volume was moderate at

But lags behind OECD average, despite drastic hikes in minimum salary

The Asian Development Bank said Tuesday that South Korea’s economy would likely contract 1 percent on-year in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but grow 3.3 percent next year on the back of the global economic recovery and local fiscal spending. In its revised set of growth projections for the Asian region, ADB maintained its earlier forecast for Asia’s fourth-largest economy, while cutting the region’s overall growth outlook for this year to a contraction of 0.7 percent f

Hong Kong-based private equity investor PAG Asia Capital exited from Korean toy maker Young Toys by selling its entire stake for some 150 billion won ($127 million) to an investor consortium led by local book publisher MiraeN. The transaction was closed earlier last week, according to deal adviser BDA Partners, after the proposed buyer and seller inked a sales and purchase agreement for 100 percent stake in Young Toys in August. MiraeN declined to comment on deal terms. “We’re pro

The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea (Exim Bank) said Tuesday that it has issued $1.5 billion worth of bonds to foreign investors. Exim Bank has sold three-year bonds worth 500 million euros, $400 million in five-year dollar bonds and $500 million in dollar bonds that will mature in 10 years. The euro-denominated social bonds carry a yield of minus 0.118 percent, the lowest interest rate offered by South Korean institutions, the state lender said. A negative bond yield means that an inv

Amid the snowballing volume of personal credit loans taken out for stock investments, Korea’s securities firms are increasingly suspending their credit financing services, local industry sources said Tuesday. Samsung Securities, the brokerage arm of the Samsung conglomerate, announced a day earlier that it would temporarily stop the purchase of credit loans as the firm had reached its limit on credit offerings. This marked the second time since July 22 that Samsung put the brakes on its