South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed Tuesday to work together to fight trade protectionism in the global market, Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.The agreement came in their phone conversation held earlier in the day."President Moon and Prime Minister Trudeau noted both South Korea and Canada are highly dependent on trade, and expressed concerns over the recent spread of trade protectionism throughout the world," Cheong Wa D

Vietnam is expected to outstrip the United States as Korea's second-largest export destination in 2020 thanks to a bilateral free trade deal, a report said Tuesday."Bilateral trade is expected to exceed $100 billion in 2020, making Vietnam the No. 2 destination for Korean exports after China," said the report from the Korea International Trade Association.Vietnam surpassed Hong Kong and emerged as Korea's third-biggest export market in 2017, trailing China and the US, up three notches

The US Federal Reserve is not expected to unveil a surprise shift in its monetary policy position following this week's rate-setting meeting, market analysts said Tuesday.The Federal Open Market Committee is tipped to raise interest rates at the Tuesday-Wednesday meeting to be presided over first by new Fed Chair Jerome Powell.A growing number of market experts have predicted that the US Federal Reserve will jack up interest rates four times this year, from an earlier estimate of three, on solid

More Korean men tend to view income and job status as essential factors for a thriving dating life compared to Japanese men, a recent report said.The report, released in late 2017, delves into the correlation between youths' economic self-reliance and family formation in Korea and Japan. The project, led by researcher Cho Sung-ho of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, cites two studies that analyzed Koreans aged 15-30 and Japanese aged 18-70. Clear differences were spotted between

South Korea's commerce minister on Monday raised cautious hopes for getting an exemption from the United States over proposed tariffs on Korean steel products, as negotiators engage in last-minute lobbying to minimize the impact on the local industry.Paik Un-gyu, minister of trade, industry and energy, said South Korea has been negotiating with US officials through multiple channels to earn a reprieve from the 25-percent steel duties, which are set to go into effect on March 23.South Korean trad

South Korean financial companies’ investments in Vietnam have grown by more than 500 percent over the past 10 years, in particular marking an uptick since last year, on the back of President Moon Jae-in’s Southeast Asia-friendly initiative, data showed Monday.The volume of investments made by domestic financial companies to the Southeast Asian state stood at $123 million last year, up 509.88 percent from 10 years prior, according to statistics from the Overseas Economic Research Inst

The Moon Jae-in administration’s employment policy, which relies on fiscal spending and is unaccompanied by regulatory and labor reforms, will do little to ease Korea’s deteriorating situation of youth joblessness, experts say.What is further concerning is that a set of pro-labor measures taken by the administration is pushing an increasing number of local firms to move production abroad, reducing jobs at home.The Ministry of Strategy and Finance is drawing up a supplementary budget

South Korea’s top financial policymaking body rolled out plans Monday to lower regulatory barriers for local financial firms to capitalize on databases accumulated in the public sector to improve their products, while also strengthening ways for consumers to take control of their own personal information shared by different financial services firms. The Financial Services Commission said such measures in the long run would be key to achieving “financial inclusion.” In a me

Douglas Min has taken office as president and chief executive officer of insurer American International Group Korea, the firm said Monday.This came two weeks after a shareholders meeting approved a one-year tenure for Min. AIG Korea is wholly owned by AIG Asia Pacific Insurance, based in Singapore.  With over 20 years of experience in the field, Min replaced Steven Barnett, who stepped down Monday after serving as chief of the global insurer’s Korean unit since 2011. Min joined AIG in

SEJONG -- Korea's finance minister has proposed an economic consultative body with Latin American countries as a means to strengthen cooperation, the finance ministry said Monday.In a meeting with Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sunday, Seoul's Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon contended that the consultative body is necessary to bolster ties between Korea and the Latin American region.The two sides also agreed to expand a progra

The burden of buying a house in Seoul has risen to a 6-year high as demand for homes in the affluent Gangnam district surged despite the government's measures to cool the property market, data showed Monday.The Korea Housing Affordability Index rose to 116.7 in the fourth-quarter of last year, up 6.4 percentage points from a quarter earlier, according to the Korea Housing-Finance Corp.It was the highest quarterly figure since the fourth-quarter of 2011, when the index stood at 119.4. The index r

Export-Import Bank of Korea will inject some 600 million euros ($739 million) into a 3.1 billion euro landmark project in Turkey, which involves SK Engineering & Construction and Daelim Industry, officials said Sunday."Eximbank will provide the Canakkale bridge and highway project with 300 million euros in loan and 300 million euros in warranty,” the state-run bank said in a press release.The two South Korean builders last year won the deal to build the world’s longest

This is the 52nd in a series of articles analyzing major companies traded on the tech-heavy Kosdaq market. -- Ed.K-pop juggernaut S.M. Entertainment has ramped up efforts to equip itself with TV series production capacities and stronger actor and actress lineups in response to a growing demand for South Korean TV content in the global market. On Wednesday, the firm confirmed two planned acquisition deals worth a combined 80 billion won ($74.9 million).Along with anticipation for improvement in t

Over the past three decades, the employment increase rate and the proportion of paid workers who are women increased noticeably to surpass those of men, according to data by the Korea Employment Information Service.The number of female employees in South Korea that had stood at 6,771,000 in 1988 increased 67.7 percent to 11,356,000 last year. The increase rate for men was 52.2 percent.The economic activity rate of women also surged from 45.0 percent to 52.1 percent in the same time span. The pro

South Korea and the United States made some progress in the third round of negotiations to amend their free trade agreement (FTA) on key issues, and will continue to talk about Washington's proposed steel tariff, Seoul's trade ministry said Saturday. Yoo Myung-hee, a South Korean deputy minister for FTA negotiations at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, ended two-days of talks with her US counterpart, Assistant Trade Representative Michael Beeman, in Washington, D.C. amid heightened tra