South Korean households’ overseas spending rose 18.9 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier on increased outbound travel to foreign countries, the central bank said Saturday.South Korean households spent 8.43 trillion won (US$7.8 billion) overseas in the October-December period, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said.The data includes expenditure by South Koreans on accommodation and food while traveling or taking business trips to foreign countries.The hike in overseas spending is attrib

South Korea is feared to continue to face US trade pressure despite the amendment of a bilateral free trade deal and the recent settlement of a row over steel imports, experts said Friday.In late March, South Korea and the US revised their free trade agreement, with Seoul agreeing to open its auto market to the US in exchange for an exemption from steel tariffs.Washington formally exempted South Korea from steep tariffs on steel imports on April 30, saying the move was in line with national secu

The average annual salary of employees at South Korea's top 30 listed companies grew in the mid-2 percent range in 2017, with the growth rate for women nearly twice that for men, market trackers said Friday.The per-capita annual salary of the leading companies increased at an average rate of 2.6 percent last year from a year earlier, according to the job portals Job Korea and Albamon.Female workers of the companies saw their annual salaries expand 3.4 percent last year from the previous year, mu

Standard & Poor's, a global rating agency, made a positive assessment of the South Korean economy amid eased inter-Korean tensions, the country's chief economic policymaker said Thursday."S&P sees the overall conditions surrounding the Korean economy positively, and it also views progress in the geopolitical risks involving North Korea in a favorable light," Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said after a meeting with a S&P delegation."But they expressed concerns over the

South Korea's trade commission said Thursday it will launch an anti-dumping investigation into stainless steel bar products imported from Taiwan and Italy.The Korea Trade Commission under the trade ministry said it made the decision at the request of Korean manufacturers, including Dongil Steel Co. and SeAH Special Steel Corp., who claimed that the cheap imports hurt their businesses.The commission said it will look into whether Taiwanese and Italian companies sold their products below fair mark

South Korea will be revealing its records on foreign exchange market intervention at an incremental pace, as part of efforts to promote the credibility of the nation’s currency policies, according to the top financial policymaker on Thursday.“The disclosure of the (government’s) measures to stabilize the foreign exchange market is the right way to go,” said Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon in a meeting of economy-related ministers.“But consid

Seoul citizens spend an average of an hour and 36 minutes traveling to and from work every day, data showed Wednesday.According to a report by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Transport Institute, Seoul citizens’ average commuting time as of 2016 stood at 96.4 minutes, the longest among major cities and provinces nationwide. Of this daily average, 41.8 minutes were spent going to work and 54.6 minutes on returning home.The corresponding figures for the metro

Concerns are deepening that the planned implementation of reduced work hours unaccompanied by specific guidelines and supplementary measures will add to difficulties faced by local companies, pushing them further to move production abroad.Under the labor law revision passed by the National Assembly in February, the maximum workweek will be reduced from 68 hours to 52 hours in three stages, starting from July 1 at companies with 300 employees or more. The shortened workweek will be applied to fir

The number of female executives at South Korea's top 30 conglomerates came to 3.1 percent of the total last year, a market tracker said Wednesday, in a sign that the glass ceiling is still intact in the male-dominated Asian country.Among 8,835 executives of 268 affiliates belonging to the business groups, known as chaebol here, that submitted business reports last year, only 274 were female, according to CEO Score.Yet, it was the first time for the tally to surpass the 3 percent mark, it said. T

South Korea's jobless rate fell slightly in April due to a rise in employment in the health care, financial service and public service sectors, but job creation still remained weak, government data showed Wednesday.The unemployment rate stood at 4.1 percent last month, down 0.1 percentage point from a year earlier, according to the report compiled by Statistics Korea.The number of employed people reached 26.86 million in April, up 123,000 from a year earlier, according to the data.The unemployme

Korea is unlikely to be significantly affected by the spreading financial instability in emerging market countries but it must not let its guard down, analysts say.There are growing concerns that capital outflow from emerging economies with weak fundamentals will accelerate in the coming months, as they are being hit by the strengthening of the dollar amid the rise in US interest rates and oil prices. Prompted by the prospect that low unemployment and high oil prices will push inflation above it

South Korea's service exports shrank nearly 8 percent in 2017 from a year earlier due to a strong local currency amid the service industry's weakening competitiveness, data showed Monday.The service sector in Asia's fourth-largest economy saw its exports reach $87.72 billion last year, down 7.6 percent from the previous year, according to the data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.Among the 35 OECD members, South Korea was the sole country that suffered a fall in ser

Despite government-led regulations to rein in the real estate market, luxury residence prices in Seoul shot up nearly 25 percent on-year in the first quarter, marking the fastest rate of growth worldwide. According to a report on the Prime Global Cities Index by UK-based real estate data provider Knight Frank, which analyzed houses that ranged in the upper 5 percent in terms of prices in 43 global cities, house prices in Seoul showed the fastest growth rate, five times the average growth rate of

A leading index that gauges the direction of South Korea's economy fell below the break-even 100 mark in the first two months of this year, which could bode ill for Asia's fourth-largest economy going forward, official data showed Sunday.According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's composite leading indicator, Seoul's reading stood at 99.8 in both January and February.The last time South Korea's CLI had dipped below 100 was in September 2014, when it stood at 99.8. Th

“Have you eaten rice?”It’s one of the most frequently used greetings in Korea, where the staple has long been considered a synonym for a meal. Even amid the rise of western food and snacks, rice continued to be appreciated as the prime source of sustenance and a symbol of the country’s traditional food legacy.But recent health trends increasingly consider rice -- and carbohydrates in general -- to be the main culprit of obesity and all sorts of other modern lifestyle dise