Govt. seeks financial-industrial synergy under ‘New Deal’ initiative

South Korea said Thursday it will hold a public hearing on the envisioned free trade pact with Uzbekistan, as the country aims to boost exports in the face of the new coronavirus pandemic. The meeting will be held Friday by inviting representatives from business, energy and agricultural groups, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. South Korea and Uzbekistan have already completed a feasibility study on the proposed free trade agreement. Earlier this month, Finance Minist

South Korea and the United States have agreed to extend a $60 billion bilateral currency swap agreement by six months in an effort to help ease lingering market uncertainties amid the new coronavirus outbreak, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Thursday. In late March, the BOK and the US Federal Reserve signed the bilateral currency swap facility to help ease financial market jitters caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The swap agreement, initially set to end on Sept. 30, will be extended until March 3

South Korea's corporate loans have risen sharply this year amid the coronavirus outbreak, leading the overall surge in the country's money supply, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country's M2 money supply came to 3,065.8 trillion won ($2.56 trillion) at the end of May, up 10.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marks the largest amount ever, and the on-year growth rate also represents a record high. Corporate lending contributed more t

South Korean companies' bond sales rose nearly 4 percent in the first half, but their share offerings went south, data showed Wednesday. Local businesses raised 89.4 trillion won ($74.5 billion) by selling bonds in the January-June period, up 3.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Increased sales of debt by nonfinancial companies and asset-backed securities led the overall rise, offsetting a fall of 965 billion won in the issuance

South Korea's consumer sentiment continued to improve this month from a month earlier, reaching the second-highest point since the country reported its first confirmed case of the new coronavirus six months earlier, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country's composite consumer sentiment index came to 84.2 in July, up 2.4 points from the previous month, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The reading marks the highest since 96.9 posted February. South Korea reported its

Nearly 67 percent of South Koreans between the ages of 55 and 79 want to keep working, a survey showed Tuesday. Their preferred retirement age is 73 on average.  According to a survey conducted by Statistics Korea, some 9.62 million respondents, or 67 percent of the 14.27 million citizens surveyed, said they want to keep working, up 2.5 percentage point from the previous year. They hoped to earn a monthly wage between 1.5 million won ($1,270) and 2 million won. Nearly 60 percent of the

South Korea's terms of trade sharply improved from a year earlier in June with its import prices falling at a faster rate than export prices, central bank data showed Tuesday. The country's terms of trade index for products came to 98.03 last month, up 9 percent from 94.32 in the same month last year, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The index measures the amount of imports a country can purchase for each unit of exports, showing how the country's exports are doing

South Korea's exports are expected to fall 9 percent on-year in July, possibly extending a slump to the fifth consecutive month, a poll showed Tuesday, but their pace of decline is predicted to slow on the back of economic reopenings. The country's outbound shipments are estimated at $41.8 billion this month, compared with $46.14 billion from a year earlier, according to the poll by Yonhap Infomax, the financial news arm of Yonhap News Agency. The survey was conducted on nine local brokerage h

Delayed tax payments during the first half of this year surged by 28 times from a year earlier, reflecting the cash-strapped reality of local taxpayers amid the COVID-19 pandemic fallout, government data showed Sunday. The number of people who have applied for their due tax payments to be put off came to 5.79 million as of end-June, which was 28.1 times higher than 206,054 cases observed a year earlier, according to data submitted by the National Tax Service to the parliamentary finance comm

SEJONG -- Only one-third of people with disabilities had jobs last year, data showed Friday, underscoring the employment challenges facing disabled people. The employment rate of disabled people stood at 34.9 percent in 2019, compared with the rate of 60.9 percent for the total population, according to the data from Statistics Korea. By age, the employment rate of disabled people from 15 and 29 stood at 30.6 percent while that for people aged 30 to 39 stood at 53.4 percent. As of 2018, 2.

Top executives of South Korea’s five major banking giants on Thursday requested authorities to maintain fair regulatory standards amid the fast rise of tech-driven financial services that are relatively loosely regulated. Chairmen from KB Financial Group, Shinhan Financial Group, Woori Financial Group, Hana Financial Group and NH Financial Group participated in a meeting with Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo to discuss response measures to counter the new coronavirus

South Korea saw its economy shrink dramatically in the second quarter, marking its worst growth in more than two decades, feeling the impact from COVID-19 fallout, central bank data showed Thursday. The chief fiscal policymaker, however, claimed that the country’s economic graph will rebound in the third quarter on the back of expansionary fiscal spending and new growth engines. The country’s real gross domestic product for April-June fell 2.9 percent from a year earlier, accordi