The value of stock settlements in South Korea plunged nearly 32 percent in the first quarter of the year as the stock market remained in the doldrums, a local clearing house said Friday. The Korea Securities Depository (KSD) said stocks worth 1.85 trillion won ($1.49 billion) were settled through the agency per day in the January-March period, down 31.8 percent from a year earlier. Yet the first-quarter figure was up 4.6 percent from three months earlier. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Pric

South Korea's top economic policymaker has said the government will continue to make policy efforts to strengthen fiscal soundness as the country's national debt has grown at a fast pace during the COVID-19 pandemic, his office said Friday. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki made the remarks during his meeting with Roberto Sifon-Arevalo, sovereign managing director of global credit appraiser S&P Global, in Washington D.C. on Thursday (local time). In the meeting, the two discussed South Korea's

Land prices in South Korea rose at a slower clip in the first quarter of 2022 from three months earlier as transactions tanked, data showed Friday. Land prices in Asia's fourth-largest economy inched up 0.91 percent on-year in the January-March period, down from a 1.03 percent increase in the last quarter of 2021, according to the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and the Korea Real Estate Board. It was a tad lower than the 0.96 percent on-year hike recorded during the same period

Sales of derivatives-linked securities in South Korea decreased in 2021 largely as investors shunned the risky investment tools amid the tightened regulations, data showed Friday. The combined value of equity-linked securities (ELS) and derivatives-linked securities (DLS) came to 84.7 trillion won ($72.1 billion) last year, down 4.3 trillion won from 2020, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). The end-2021 figure marks the lowest since 2014, when the comparable numb

President Moon Jae-in hands Bank of Korea Gov. Rhee Chang-yong a certificate of appointment as the chief of the nation’s central bank at Cheong Wa Dae in Seoul on Thursday. Rhee, the former director of the Asia and Pacific department at the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, was nominated last month by Moon to succeed former BOK Gov. Lee Ju-yeol, whose term ended on March 31. The high-profile official nomination was Moon’s last before he leaves office on May 10. Rhee&rsquo

SEJONG -- South Korea’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki kept his seat while other fiscal chiefs or central bank governors walked out of a G-20 meeting in protest of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the ministry on Thursday.　 According to overseas news reports and remarks from British officials, top officials from the US, Canada and the UK left the G-20 finance ministerial meeting, held in Washington, D.C. on Wednesday,&n

South Korea's exports rose 16.9 percent in the first 20 days of April from a year earlier on the back of demand for chips and petroleum products, customs data showed Thursday. The country's outbound shipments stood at $36.3 billion in the April 1-20 period, compared with $31 billion a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Imports increased 25.5 percent on-year to $41.5 billion, resulting in a trade deficit of $5.2 billion during the cited period, the data showed. By

South Korea's producer prices rose for the third straight month in March as high energy and raw material prices pushed up the costs of churning out factory goods, central bank data showed Thursday. The producer price index, a major barometer of consumer inflation, stood at 116.46 in March, up 1.3 percent from a month earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). From a year earlier, the index also jumped 8.8 percent, which was faster than the previous month's 8.5 perce

Finance Minister Hong at finish line after dealing with market pandemic-triggered economic crisis, real estate

South Korea's top economic policymaker has stressed the need to balance market mechanisms against non-pricing policy measures in coordinating global efforts to fight climate change, his office said Wednesday.Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki made the remarks during an online meeting of the Coalition of Finance Ministers for Climate Actions held Tuesday."The proper combination of market mechanisms, such as an emissions trading system, and non-price policy support is a must in responding to climat

South Korea's wheat import prices soared to an over 13-year high in March on the impact of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a global supply chain bottleneck, data showed Wednesday, exerting upward pressure on food prices here. The country's import prices of wheat amounted to $402 per ton last month, up 8.8 percent from the previous month and the highest level since December 2008, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service and industry sources. Compared with a year earlier, the per-ton

South Korea placed second in research and development (R&D) spending as a portion of its gross domestic product (GDP) among major developed countries in 2020, but its tepid growth in recent years calls for more policy support, a report said Wednesday. South Korea's R&D expenditures reached 93.1 trillion won ($75.4 billion) in 2020, accounting for 4.81 percent of GDP, according to a recent report by the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the country's largest business lobby. That made

SEJONG -- The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday predicted that the growth of the Korean economy would stay in the mid 2 percent range this year in the wake of the war between Ukraine and Russia, alongside the ongoing pandemic. In its latest world economic outlook report, the IMF revised down its forecast on the gross domestic product growth of Korea by 0.5 percentage point from its earlier suggestion of 3 percent to 2.5 percent. The figure is lower than the growth prediction of 2.7 percen

Former IMF economist says household debt growth is slowing, but the amount is still high

The number of employees in the food service segment rose 1.2 percent on-year in October last year as the job market improved amid the economic recovery, data showed Tuesday. The number of people employed at restaurants and eateries reached 1.56 million last October, up 19,000 from a year earlier, according to Statistics Korea. The tally slowed from an on-year increase of 65,000 six months earlier. But it marked an improvement from October 2020, when such workers fell by a record number of 179,00