South Korea's chief economic policymaker said Friday the government is "cautiously" considering raising property taxes in yet another attempt to tame rising home prices.Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said there are speculative demands in some areas such as the wealthy Gangnam Ward and adjacent districts."We have been reviewing many options in regard to a hike in property ownership tax," Kim said in a session with senior journalists at the press center in central Seoul.There h

Looking at a smartphone app showing the prices of cryptocurrencies, Lee Jae-sung sighed. The 24-year-old university student bought 5 million won ($4,666) worth of a little-known cryptocurrency called Nxt last month.To date, the cryptocurrency has lost about 64 percent of its value, and Lee has been suffering from insomnia these days."I am repeatedly asking myself whether I should sell this at a loss, but I can't make a decision," Lee said.Lee is one of many young and Internet-savvy cry

A majority of South Koreans favor banning the import of Japanese fishery products, a survey showed Friday, underscoring lingering safety concerns about possible radioactive contamination.Radioactive water leaked following the meltdown at Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2011.The Consumers Union of Korea polled 1,023 adults across the country last year, and the results showed 55.3 percent want stronger import restrictions. Another 37.2 percent said the restrictions should be "very he

In a country where apartments are generally and mostly the preferred form of residence, the prices of detached, single houses have been showing a rapid surge, data by the Land Ministry showed.Of the 25 districts in Seoul, Mapo and Yongsan displayed significant increase in prices, as the two areas have diverse large-scale development plans in store. (khnews@heraldcorp.com)

Kwon Yong-won, chief executive of Korea’s online-only brokerage Kiwoom Securities, was elected the chairman of the Korea Financial Investment Association Thursday. Starting Feb. 4, the 56-year-old will serve his three-year term for the self-regulatory organization for financial investment industry in Korea. Kwon is the fourth chairman of the association founded in 2009. Kwon earned 145 votes out of 231 participants to beat contenders, former chief Woori Investment & Securities Hwa

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission said Thursday it plans to circulate a combined 11.2 trillion won ($10.6 billion) this year for local retail borrowers that hold midrange credit scores while having trouble finding corresponding loans.The FSC pledged to pour a combined 8 trillion won into state-run loan products sold at banks, including those designed for refinancing. The remaining 3.2 trillion won will be spent to encourage private banking institutions to develop and sell midrang

Standard Chartered Bank Korea released updates to its flagship mobile banking app “Self Bank” on Jan. 8, almost a year after the app was released.The app is designed to allow its retail customers to buy banking services without visiting a brick-and-mortar branch. Since the app was launched in February 2017, Standard Chartered Bank Korea has sold 53,000 products ranging from checking products, deposits, savings, credit cards, consumer loans to insurance through the app. The update ena

Korea is considering imposing taxes on virtual currency transactions as part of its efforts to curb excessively speculative investment in cryptocurrencies, the country's top economic policymaker said Thursday. "We are reviewing (taxation) because (cryptocurrency) is seen to be taxable," Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon told lawmakers. "We are looking at a variety of cases in other countries." The finance minister also stressed that virtual currencies are not legal tender, addin

South Korea's state-run power exchange said Thursday it has ordered local companies to cut their power use to maintain a stable electricity reserve rate for the second consecutive day as the bitter cold gripping most of the nation was driving up heating demand.The Korea Power Exchange said it issued a demand response order to companies to cut electricity use between 9 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. as the country's power use soared to 86 million kilowatts earlier in the morning. The order, the fourth this

A ruling party lawmaker said Thursday he has submitted a bill requiring high-level government officials and lawmakers to disclose their cryptocurrency holdings when they report their assets every year under an anti-corruption law.The revision to the Public Service Ethics Act, submitted by Rep. Noh Woong-rae of the Democratic Party, calls for officials subject to annual wealth disclosure to report their virtual currency holdings worth 10 million won ($9,388) or more.Under the current act, assets

South Korea's economic growth accelerated last year on the back of robust exports amid a global economic recovery, the Bank of Korea said Thursday.The nation's economy expanded 3.1 percent in 2017 from a year ago, when it grew 2.8 percent, the BOK said. It was the first time since 2014 that the economy grew above the 3 percent level. For the final quarter of last year, however, the economy contracted 0.2 percent from the previous quarter, mainly due to fewer working days over the long Chuseok ho

South Korean people suffer from rising ratios of household debt to income, as more people are aging, due mainly to early retirement and the lack of an effective pension system, a report said Wednesday."People face rising household-debt-to-income ratios as they are getting older in South Korea, unlike other advanced countries," the Bank of Korea report said.South Korea, Spain and the Netherlands were the only countries where people aged 75 and older have higher ratios of household debt

Korea remains increasingly vulnerable to possible disruptions in overseas supplies of critical minerals used in everything from batteries to semiconductors and smartphones.Global demand for critical minerals continues to rise in keeping with the advancement of the “fourth industrial revolution,” resulting in a sharp increase in their prices.According to data from Korea Resources Corp., the prices of cobalt, tungsten, lithium and nickel jumped 124.7 percent, 63.2 percent, 31.7 percent

The EU has removed South Korea from a blacklist of tax havens, lifting the concerns of punitive economic measures and reputational damage, the finance ministry said Tuesday.EU finance ministers agreed to remove South Korea and seven other countries from the list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said in a statement.  The seven countries are Panama, Mongolia, Barbados, Macau, Tunisia, Grenada and the United Arab Emirates.In December,

South Korea’s financial watchdog on Tuesday unveiled a set of guidelines to employ a real-name transaction system for virtual coins encrypted on distributed ledger platforms like blockchain, starting Jan. 30. Once the new real-name transaction system comes into effect, cryptocurrency traders will be able to resume the purchase of encrypted coins like bitcoin, ether or ripple in Korea.Traders in Korea have faced hurdles in depositing money to buy more coins since the government in December