Dividends by South Korea's four major financial holding firms are expected to hit an all-time high in 2021 as they have decided to return more of their bumper profits to shareholders, sources said Monday. The combined dividend payout of the four is likely to reach around 3.83 trillion won ($3.23 billion) this year, according to the sources and an estimate by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency. It would represent the largest-ever dividend payout by the four holding com

The US Federal Reserve recently said it would wrap up its pandemic-era bond purchases in March, signaling as many as three rate hikes by the end of 2022. While the South Korean financial authorities have expressed confidence that the expected rate hikes will have minimal impact on the local market, experts were divided on the matter as of Friday. The nation’s First Vice Finance Minister Lee Eog-won said Thursday that the US Fed’s latest decision was within market expectations, res

Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Friday the government has mobilized all possible resources to provide additional financial support to small businesses that will be affected by the new virus curbs. Kim spoke at a joint press briefing with economy-related ministers on the government's plan to pay 1 million won ($844) each to 3.2 million small business owners following its announcement of stricter social distancing measures the previous day. "We came up with additional support measures that

South Korea's domestic demand is feared to lose steam amid the latest upsurge in COVID-19 cases and tighter antivirus measures, the finance ministry said Friday. Amid global inflation risks and supply chain disruptions, Asia's fourth-largest economy faces persisting uncertainty due to the spread of the omicron variant and major economies' move to accelerate monetary policy shifts, the ministry said in its monthly economic assessment report, called the Green Book. "The country's exports re

South Korea's overseas direct investment rose at the fastest pace in nearly five years in the third quarter amid the global economic recovery, data showed Friday. South Korean companies' overseas investments came to $17.01 billion in the July-September period, up 58.2 percent from the previous year, according to the data by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. It marked the fastest on-year gain since the fourth quarter of 2016, when it grew 58.3 percent. The third-quarter growth rate was also

Central bank chief expresses concerns as consumer inflation is projected to hover in the 2 percent range next year

South Korean construction companies' sales dropped on-year in 2020 for the first time in 21 years due to the coronavirus pandemic, government data showed Thursday. The combined top line of local builders reached 396.9 trillion won ($336 billion) last year, down 1.1 percent from the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. It marks the first on-year decline since the 11.1 percent decrease recorded in 1999 in the wake of the country's foreign exchange crisis. Their domestic s

The income gap between the haves and have-nots in South Korea narrowed to a record low in 2020 on the back of the government's provision of emergency cash handouts amid the pandemic, data showed Thursday. The Gini coefficient measured with disposable income, a gauge of income inequality, came in at 0.331 last year, down from 0.339 the previous year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. A reading of zero means complete income equality, while higher numbers nearing one indicate a widenin

South Korea's top economic policymaker said Thursday the government plans to make efforts to help the country's economy grow in the early 3 percent range next year amid heightened economic uncertainty. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said the country plans to focus on boosting domestic demand and conducting fiscal spending in the fourth quarter to achieve the 4 percent range growth target for this year. The finance ministry plans to unveil its 2022 economic policy directions next week. Hong said

More than 3 million Koreans still de facto jobless

South Korea's nuclear safety watchdog on Wednesday approved the restart of a nuclear reactor in the country's southwestern nuclear complex that was shut down for an inspection. The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission said it has given the go-ahead to restart the Wolsong No. 4, 700-megawatt reactor, in Gyeongju, 371 kilometers southeast of Seoul. The Wolsong No. 4 nuclear power reactor, which first started operations in 1999, has been shut down since Oct. 10 for regular maintenance. The com

Expanded use of robots has resulted in a "meaningful" decline in demand for human labor in the manufacturing industry while replacing mostly "routine" and "repetitive" jobs, a central bank report said Wednesday. The Bank of Korea's report was based on data related to introduction of robots in industries and the impact on employment from 2010-2019. It analyzed the net effect of the "displacement effect" in which robots replace workers and "productivit

South Korea's money supply grew in October on increased savings amid higher interest rates on deposits, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country's M2, a key gauge of the money supply, stood at 3,550.6 trillion won ($3 trillion) as of end-October, up 1.1 percent, or 38 trillion won, from a month earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The growth slightly quickened from the previous month's 0.5 percent gain. Compared with a year earlier, the money supply

South Korea's automobile exports fell nearly 5 percent in November from a year earlier due to a global shortage of automotive chips, data showed Wednesday. Outbound shipments of automobiles came to 178,994 units last month, down 4.7 percent from the same month a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. In terms of value, however, exports advanced 3.3 percent to $4.12 billion in November, the largest monthly tally since April when the supply bottlene

South Korea reported job additions for the ninth straight month in November in the latest sign the country's economic recovery has continued despite the latest upsurge in COVID-19 cases, data showed Wednesday. The number of employed people reached 27.79 million last month, 553,000 more than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The reading was lower than an on-year increase of 652,000 in October. But the number of employed people has risen since March as Asia's fo