South Korea's economic recovery momentum is slowing down as the service sector has remained sluggish amid a resurgence in new coronavirus cases, a state-run think tank said Sunday. The country's manufacturing sector sustained a recovery due mainly to robust exports, but the service industry is suffering sluggishness due to a flare-up in COVID-19, according to a monthly economic assessment report by the Korea Development Institute (KDI). "Despite the recovery in the manufacturing industry,

South Korea plans to restrict or phase out its imports of 10 kinds of industrial waste to increase the recycling of domestic waste, the Ministry of Environment said Sunday. The ministry said the importation of half of the 10 waste items, including plastic waste, mixed waste paper and coal ash, will be banned between 2022 and 2023. According to the ministry's road map, imports of all kinds of industrial waste, excluding metal scraps and a few others, will be banned in principle by 2030, while t

The South Korean government plans to create 1.04 million new jobs in the public sector in an effort to tackle the pandemic employment shock, according to the nation’s first vice minister of finance Friday.  “To offer job opportunities to low-income households and young job seekers hit hard by the COVID-19 crisis, (the government) aims to create 1.04 million state-backed jobs by the end of this year, which is up nearly 10 percent from the previous year’s job-creating pr

Foreign investors turned net sellers of South Korean equities in December last year, as they took profits from a recent stock rally, the central bank said Friday. Foreigners sold a net $2.36 billion worth of local stocks last month, compared with a net purchase of $5.07 billion in November last year, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). Offshore investors also became net sellers of Korean bonds worth $170 million last month, the BOK said. Meanwhile, volatility in South Korea's currency fell

South Korea plans to increase budgetary support for the purchase of electric and hydrogen cars by around 30 percent this year in a bid to nurture the next-generation vehicle sector, the finance minister said Friday. The country has set the non-memory chip, bio-health and next-generation vehicle sectors as the "BIG 3" industries that it seeks to nurture for job creation and innovation-driven growth. As part of such efforts, the country will spend 1.4 trillion won ($1.3 billion) to sup

South Korea's current account surplus narrowed on month in November last year, mainly due to a decline in investment income, the central bank said Friday. The current account surplus reached $8.97 billion in November, narrowing from a surplus of $11.66 billion the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade. Since the country logged a deficit of $3.33 billion in April last year, the largest in almost a decade, on falte

In Q3 2020, Japan placed No. 4, Czech Republic at No. 7

Top foreign investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and HSBC, have upgraded South Korea’s growth outlook for this year to an average 3.4 percent, up by 0.1 percentage point from their previous estimate, a report released by the Korea Center for International Finance showed Thursday.  By end-December, two of nine investment banks surveyed in the report -- Credit Suisse and HSBC -- had revised their outlook upward by 0.7 percentage point and 0.5 percentage point to 3.6 per

Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom vowed on Thursday to strengthen monitoring on swelling of liquidity spilled over to the country’s asset markets amid concerns over the stock market’s sharp pandemic-era rally. Buoyed by fiscal stimulus and relief packages provided during the COVID-19 crisis management procedure, the abundant liquidity has flown into the stock and real estate markets to the point where the government is beginning to worry whether the real economy could catch up.

South Korea's ICT ministry said Thursday it will invest 262.6 billion won ($242 million) to foster education in artificial intelligence (AI) and software this year as part of the country's digital New Deal program that seeks to boost jobs in new tech industries. South Korea last year unveiled the digital New Deal, which aims to spend 58.2 trillion won on key tech investments, such as AI, to create around 900,000 jobs by 2025. The Ministry of Science and ICT said it plans to educate around 16,0

Excess funds held by South Korean households and nonprofit agencies rose in the third quarter of last year due mainly to an increase in stock investments, the central bank said Thursday. Net financial funds -- the value of financial assets minus financial liabilities -- held by local households and nonprofit organizations serving households amounted to 30.7 trillion won ($28.2 billion) in the July-September period, up from 16.6 trillion won a year earlier, according to preliminary data from the

South Korea's exports of fishery products moved down 7.4 percent on-year in 2020, data showed Thursday, as people around the globe refrained from dining out amid the new coronavirus pandemic, leading to weaker demand for tuna and other popular goods. Outbound shipments of fishery goods reached $2.3 billion last year, down from $2.5 billion posted in 2019, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries. The decrease was largely attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, whic

South Korea's vice finance minister vowed Thursday to strengthen financial stability this year amid concerns that idle money is excessively flowing into asset markets. Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom made the remarks amid mounting worries that only asset markets, such as property and stock markets, are booming even as economic slumps caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have continued. "Authorities are facing the task of closely managing liquidity that has sharply increased in the process

Major foreign investment banks (IBs) have slightly raised their forecasts for South Korea's economic growth for 2021 despite the coronavirus pandemic, a report showed Thursday. As of end-December, nine major global IBs, including Barclays and Goldman Sachs, forecast the South Korean economy to grow 3.4 percent this year, up 0.1 percentage point from their median outlook offered a month earlier, according to the report by the Korea Center for International Finance. Seven IBs -- Barclays, BoA-Me

The government will spend over 26 trillion won ($23.9 billion) to develop new towns and build infrastructure in the first half of the year in a bid to curb soaring housing prices, the Finance Ministry said on Wednesday. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki unveiled detailed plans for a government-led 110 trillion won investment project program that will be carried out throughout the year by public agencies, state-run firms and private companies. “The investment project will center on housing s