SEJONG -- Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Monday he expects South Korea's second-quarter economic contraction to be worse than the first quarter due to the coronavirus pandemic, but the government aims to achieve economic growth in the third quarter. The nation's economy shrank 1.3 percent in the first quarter as the pandemic hit exports and consumption. The Bank of Korea predicted that the economy would contract 0.2 percent this year. "I think that the second-quarter growth rate will

South Korea's economy will likely rebound to grow 3 percent in 2021 after contracting 2.1 percent this year in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, an IMF economist said Monday. Asian countries are expected to post 1.6 percent negative growth for the first time in history as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to weigh on demand and exports, but they will rebound to growth of 6.6 percent next year, Angana Banerji, senior economist at the International Monetary Fund, said in a webinar hosted by t

South Korea will execute its third supplementary budget of 35.1 trillion won ($29.3 billion) on Monday as part of a move to minimize the economic impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said Sunday. The latest COVID-19 response budget, the single biggest spending in the country’s history, was approved by the National Assembly late Friday, surpassing the extra budget of 28.4 trillion won passed amid the 2009 global financial crisis.  Earlier i

South Korea's gold turnover reached an all-time high in the first half of 2020 as investors flocked to safer assets amid the coronavirus pandemic around the globe, data showed Sunday. The combined turnover on the gold bourse stood at 710 billion won ($591 million) over the January-June period, exceeding the 591.9 billion won posted for all of 2019, according to the data compiled by the Korea Exchange (KRX). The gold bourse was launched on March 24, 2014, as the country tried to bring more tra

South Korea's economy is widely expected to suffer its first annual contraction in over a decade this year but may expand, depending on how swiftly and effectively the government implements its budget spending and how quickly the COVID-19 pandemic is brought under control, a think tank said Sunday. "Considering that economic indicators are worsening to levels seen during the Asian financial crisis when the country posted a negative growth, the possibility of the country posting a negative

S. Korean lawmakers on Friday are set to pass a bill for the third extra budget of up to 35.3 trillion won ($29.5 billion) in the afternoon, marking the passage of the largest-ever supplementary budget, in an effort to cushion the economy from the blows of the coronavirus pandemic. In a press briefing held earlier in the day, ruling Democratic Party of Korea Rep. Park Hong-keun set the time for the National Assembly’s plenary session vote at 7 p.m., saying that related Special Comm

South Korea’s foreign exchange reserves hit a fresh record high of $410.75 billion last month, having gained $3.44 billion on-month due to a weak dollar trend, the nation’s central bank said Friday. “Profits and investment returns from foreign assets coupled with the weak dollar trend translating into a higher dollar-converted value of other currencies contributed to the gain,” A Bank of Korea official said. Korea’s forex reserves have increased for three conse

South Korea’s public pension fund National Pension Service has posted a return rate of 11.34 percent last year, hitting a 10-year record high, Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo said Friday. “After recording a return rate of minus 0.89 percent in 2018, last year’s figure rebounded within just a year. It is the highest return rate since establishing the NPS Investment Management Committee in 1999,” said Park, who also heads the state pension’s asset mana

South Korea aims to foster its intellectual property financial investment market to 1.3 trillion won ($1.08 billion) by 2024 to help firms deal with liquidity issues triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the nation’s IP office said Thursday. The Korean Intellectual Property Office announced 14 specific tasks under four pillars that would establish platforms for individuals and firms to directly invest in IP and profit from royalties, sales and even lawsuits. This is expected to boost th

Hong vows to prevent negative growth in H2

The number of Chinese tourists to South Korea fell by more than 30 percent in the 2017-2020 period from three years earlier due to a bilateral diplomatic row, data showed Thursday. The monthly average number of Chinese tourists in South Korea reached 380,000 during the three-year period starting in April 2017, down 33.1 percent compared with the three-year span beginning in February 2014, according to data by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). The fall came as China -- South Korea's larges

South Korea said Thursday its exports of agricultural goods and foodstuffs advanced 4.4 percent on-year in the first six months of 2020 as the global new coronavirus pandemic has sparked higher demand for processed products. The country's outbound shipments of agricultural products and foodstuffs reached $3.6 billion in the January-June period, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. Exports of fresh produce advanced 1.2 percent over the period t

SEJONG -- South Korea's finance minister on Thursday called for Japan to adopt a "sincere attitude" in talks to resolve a trade row between the two Asian neighbors. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said South Korea "calls on the Japanese government to show a stance of progress with a sincere attitude to lift its export curbs." Seoul and Tokyo have been at loggerheads since July last year, after Japan abruptly rolled out restrictions on exports of key industrial materials to S

SEJONG -- South Korea's annual inflation remained unchanged on-year in June amid the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Thursday. The consumer price growth remained flat last month compared with a 0.3 percent on-year decline in May, according to the data released by Statistics Korea. The nation's inflation rose 0.2 percent on-month, the data showed. Core inflation, which excludes agricultural and petroleum products, rose 0.6 percent from a year earlier. Utility prices fell 0.3 percent on-yea

South Korea’s financial authorities said Wednesday they will ramp up their efforts to open up financial big data to local markets in an effort to nurture the industry here. Starting August, the Korea Credit Information Services, a pan-industry body tasked with data preservation and protection, will offer various information collected from nearly 50 million anonymous insurance consumers to both financial and nonfinancial companies via its online-based Financial Bigdata Open System, dubbed