South Korea and Japan launched their bilateral talks on Friday in Switzerland to discuss the ongoing trade row between the two Asian neighbors, the first step toward resolving the dispute at the World Trade Organization (WTO).    The meeting, held in Geneva, came after Japan implemented regulations on the export to South Korea of three industrial materials vital for the production of chips and displays.     Last month, South Korea formally filed a complain

   South Korea will provide support worth more than 2 trillion won ($1.6 billion) each year to strengthen industrial competitiveness, the finance minister said Friday, amid an ongoing trade row with Japan.   Hong Nam-ki also said South Korea will push for a stable supply of key industrial materials, parts and equipment.   The move is the latest in a series of South Korea's efforts to reduce South Korea's heavy reliance on Japan in the key industrial sector amid Jap

South Korea's finance minister expressed hope Thursday that Seoul's increased contribution to the U.N. Green Climate Fund could help with its successful replenishment. Hong Nam-ki made the comment in a meeting with Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the Green Climate Fund, at the government complex building in central Seoul.Last month, Asia's fourth-largest economy announced that it would double its contribution to US$200 million for this first round of the replenishment of the fund. Seoul

Online consumers outside of South Korea are mostly interested in buying Korean brand beauty products like cosmetics and perfumes, a survey from the Korea International Trade Association showed Wednesday. The survey of 460 consumers in the US, China and Europe conducted by online shopping platform Kmall24 showed that 26 percent of them picked K-beauty as the most desired shopping category. Following that were K-pop-related products such as music albums and DVDs at 24 percent and food and beverage

Riding on word-of-mouth through social media, E-mart is seeing a whopping increase in its sales of sushi products, the retail chain said Wednesday.With 65 million pieces of sushi having been sold within the January to September period this year, E-mart said it expects sales to reach 100 million by the year’s end. An official explained the sales amount translates to 2.78 pieces of sushi being sold each second over that period.E-mart has been targeting the sushi market by using fresh fish in

The Korea Herald is publishing a series of articles to look into the weakening of the global economic framework in light of fading liberalism and the rise of trade protectionism and nationalism. This is the fourth installment. -- Ed.After last year’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, the headlines announced a first in the forum’s 25-year history: Its 21 members had failed to reach a consensus on a joint communique, one repercussion from the ongoing US-China trade war. In rece

The ongoing slump facing South Korea and the rest of the world is widely expected to continue for some time, but the duration and degree of its impact will largely depend on how the trade conflict between the world's two largest economies will end, the chief of South Korea's central bank said Tuesday."The growth of the global economy is slowing down," Bank of Korea Gov. Lee Ju-yeol told the parliamentary finance committee at the start of its annual audit. "Such a slowdown is expec

The number of companies unable to service their debts with earnings rose from a year earlier in 2018, posing a threat to the country's financial and economic stability, central bank data showed Tuesday.According to a report submitted by the Bank of Korea for parliamentary audit, the number of the so-called marginal companies came to 3,236 last year, up from 3,112 a year earlier.The number represents 14.2 percent of 22,869 companies here that are subject to external audit. Marginal firms refer to

South Korea's current account remained in the black for the fourth consecutive month in August, but its surplus narrowed sharply from a year earlier amid a steady decline in exports, central bank data showed Tuesday.The country's current account surplus came to $5.27 billion in the month, compared with a $8.55 billion surplus in the same month last year and a $6.95 billion surplus a month earlier, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea.The goods account surplus has been more than h

The average sale price of real estate in redeveloped apartment complexes in Seoul has soared more than 50 percent over the past four years, data showed Monday.According to data submitted by the state-run Korea Housing & Urban Guarantee Corporation to the parliamentary land committee, the average sale price per pyeong for reconstructed apartments stood at 31.5 million won ($26,345) as of this year. A pyeong is a unit of area used in real estate measuring, equivalent to 3.3 square meters. This

South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics is expected to see its third quarter earnings come in well over market consensus, according to forecast by Korea Investment & Securities. Next year’s operating profit will be even greater, the securities firm predicted in its report.The revenue of Samsung in the latest quarter will be around 65.8 trillion won and its operating profit sime 7.4 trillion, each exceeding earlier predictions by 5 percent and 9 percent, respectively, the rep

SEJONG -- A variety of polls show that the public disapproval rating for President Moon Jae-in now outstrips his approval rating.According to a survey from Gallup Korea, the portion of respondents who expressed negative opinion toward the president, exceeded the supporters for him for the sixth consecutive week since August.In the pollster’s latest survey, conducted on Oct. 1-2, 51 percent of the 1,000 citizens polled expressed disapproval of Moon’s performance, while the approval ra

South Korea marked the steepest drop in export volume so far this year among the world’s top 10 exporters, data showed.Korea’s export slowdown was especially noticeable in July, due partly to the slowdown in overall world trade volume and the drop in prices of semiconductors and petroleum products. Exports to China, in particular, dropped significantly by 16.6 percent from the previous month.  The month coincides with when Japan started to impose export curbs on key materials cr

China's political dispute with Taiwan may add to regional risks created by protest rallies in Hong Kong that could further undermine South Korea's exports to its neighbors, a central bank report suggested Sunday.South Korean exports have dipped for 10 consecutive months since December amid the prolonged trade dispute between the United States and China, the world's largest importers of South Korean goods."Considering the country's close financial and trade relations with the countries, a ch

Seniors are the chief breadwinners for South Korea's poorest households, with such family units generally having less than one member holding a steady job, data showed Saturday.According to the data from Statistics Korea, the average age of the chief breadwinners for households making up the bottom 20 percent of the income tier stood at 63.8 years between 2003 and 2019.  Asia's fourth-largest economy became an aged society -- one in which 14 percent of the population is over 65 -- in 2017,