The government will evaluate all public entities, including state-run firms, and most of their projects for their impact on new and existing jobs that may determine the size of their budget in the future, a presidential committee on jobs said Tuesday.Starting next year, the public entities and their projects will be scored on the number of new, quality jobs they create.The scores will be reflected in the size of their budget for the following year, while private firms that create many new jobs m

South Korea's top financial regulator said Tuesday it will toughen punishment for financial holding firms over false disclosures of accounting books and other business reports.Under the toughened rule, which will take effect Oct. 19, fines against financial holding firms will be hiked by as much as 12 times if they violate relevant laws, the Financial Services Commission said in a statement. Currently, a financial holding firm is required to pay a fine of 5 million won ($4,447) when it violates

South Korea's exporters should increase their participation in the global value chain in order to improve their productivity, a report by the central bank said Tuesday.The report featured in the monthly periodical of the Bank of Korea said South Korean exports' participation in GVC fell from 62.7 percent in 2008 to 56 percent in 2009, following the global downward pattern after the international financial crisis of 2008.  GVC measures international trade by counting all phases in production

South Korea may be hit hardest if the United States turns up the heat on China over trade issues as Seoul vies fiercely with Beijing for a bigger slice of the US market, a report said Tuesday.The Korea International Trade Association claimed in the report that Washington has singled out China for tougher import restrictions, which is resulting in greater import regulation risks for South Korean products.KITA based its assessment on the US administration's "too many" antidumping investi

South Korea's total supply in manufacturing gained ground in the April-June period marking five straight quarters of growth on a sharp rise in imports, but the pace slowed down slightly, government data showed Tuesday.The manufacturing domestic supply index that measures both goods produced locally and brought into the country, advanced 5.3 percent on-year to stand at 116.9, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.The on-year growth slowed down from a record 7.2-percent gain tallied t

An accounting firm again refused to provide its audit opinions on China Ocean Resources Co., a Hong Kong-based deep-sea fisheries company listed on the Korean stock market, saying the company's accounting books were riddled with problems. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, Shinhan Accounting Corp. said it could not "rationally judge" the financial status of China Ocean Resources, which is on the verge of being delisted from the Korean stock market due to its false financial disclosures

The recovery pace of the South Korean economy has remained feeble for months as an upturn in exports and private consumption was offset by weak industrial output, a government report said Tuesday."The South Korean economy saw its exports and investment continue to rise and private consumption make a slight rebound, but its recovery pace remained lackluster due to a slowdown in the production of mining and manufacturing," the finance ministry said in its monthly economy assessment repor

South Korea's antitrust watchdog has received the top rating among the world's competition authorities for two years in a row this year for its effective anti-competitive activities, the agency said Tuesday.The South Korean regulator earned five stars, or the "elite" grade, along with France, Germany and the United States, at the latest "Rating Enforcement" survey conducted by the Global Competition Review, the Fair Trade Commission said.The FTC advanced to the top spot in th

South Korean banks' combined net profit more than doubled on-year in the first six months of 2017, government data showed Tuesday, led by lower loan-loss provisions and higher interest income.Combined net profit at local banks soared 171.4 percent to 8.1 trillion won ($7.18 billion) in the first six months of 2017, compared to 3 trillion won a year earlier, the Financial Supervisory Service said in a statement."The growth was mostly because loan loss expenses were reduced by 5.7 trillion wo

Public institutions hired about 9,730 people in the first half of this year, dropping below previous averages and missing the target, data by All Public Information in One (Alio), a government portal, showed.The newly recruited people accounted for 49 percent of the 19,862 new workers they planned to hire for the entire year. The initial goal was to meet 55.9 percent of the target by the end of June. The Moon Jae-in administration had prioritized job creation and added 2,500 more to the target f

WeWork, a global shared office space provider, said Monday it will invest a combined $500 million in South Korea and Southeast Asia as it attempts to expand its presence in the Asian market. Under the expansion plan, the New York-based company has appointed Matt Shampine, currently head of Marketing and Revenue for Asia, as the General Manager of Korea.  "Today's announcement reaffirms WeWork's commitment to scaling our business across Asia," Miguel McKelvey, co-founder of WeWork,

Coming up with an unprecedented set of real estate speculation curbing measures last week, the government certainly sought to deter wealthy multiple home owners from monopolizing the market and to lower the entry barrier for first-time buyers.The extended impact of the policy, however, also seemed to reach out to the cash-strapped urban-dwelling bidders in their 30s and 40s who, under the renewed mortgage loan conditions, were left with few housing alternatives.“I would never have been abl

Calls are rising to reduce the proportion of workers exempted from paying taxes as a draft tax code revision announced by the government last week is seen to fall far short of funding President Moon Jae-in’s lavish welfare and employment programs.As of 2015, 46.8 percent of workers in the country paid no tax for their earned incomes, according to data from the National Tax Service. The figure was far higher than 15.8 percent in Japan, 19.8 percent in Germany, 23.1 percent in Australia and

Foreign investment banks predict the South Korean economy to lose momentum slightly in 2018 after posting solid growth this year, a report showed Monday.According to the report by the Korea Center for International Finance, Barclays, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Nomura and five other foreign IBs forecast the economy to grow at an average rate of 2.8 percent in 2017 on robust exports and facility investment as of end-July.But Asia's fourth-largest economy will likely lose growth momentum slightly ne

The US Trade Representative's office has asked a group of industry advisers to provide opinions on amending a bilateral trade pact with South Korea by Aug. 15, indicating that the two nations may not be able to hold a joint committee to revise the agreement this week, sources said Monday. According to the report by the Inside US Trade website, published last Saturday, the USTR "recently asked its industry trade advisory committees for ideas on the implementation of the agreement and issues