The number of viewers who have seen “Roaring Currents” exceeded 10 million on Sunday, just 12 days after its premiere, marking the fastest time for a film screened in Korea to hit the box office milestone.The period action flick centers on the historic Battle of Myeongnyang in 1592 at the dawn of the Japanese invasion of Korea (1592-1598), in which Adm. Yi Sun-sin uses brilliant strategy to defeat 133 Japanese warships with only 12 vessels under his command.

Chinese yuan-denominated deposits at banks in South Korea hit a record high as banks offered higher interest rates on savings accounts for consumers, according to Korea’s central bank. Meanwhile, those of the U.S. dollar fell sharply last month, the Bank of Korea data showed.Renmibi deposits amounted to $16.2 billion, accounting for almost 26 percent of the total foreign currency deposits as of the end of July.The portion of dollar deposits fell to 64.5 percent, down 4.5 percent from the previou

Korea’s top 10 conglomerates may have to pay an additional 1.1 trillion won ($1.06 billion) in taxes under a new tax scheme that aims to make local companies raise their dividend payouts, capital spending and salaries for their workers, data showed.The Finance Ministry unveiled a set of tax revisions Wednesday to boost domestic demand. Under the new scheme, companies with paid-in capital of 50 billion won or more will be subject to a 10 percent tax on surplus cash when they spend less than 80 pe

Some 3 percent of the active soldiers in South Korea have received treatment for mental and behavioral disorders from 2011 to 2013, military medical officials said Wednesday.A total of 19,066 soldiers out of some 650,000 men and women in uniform in the Korean military were treated for the cited diseases, according to a report by the Armed Forces Medical Command. Of the 2,158 soldiers initially diagnosed with anxiety disorders, 1,913 were confirmed by psychiatrists. Enlisted soldiers accounted fo

Around 574,000 Chinese tourists visited Korea in June this year, making up 45 percent of the total foreign visitors that month, according to data by Tourism Knowledge and Information System and banking investment firms. The ratio of Chinese women came to 59.6 percent in January and up to 63.2 percent in June, accounting for 305,886 among the 483,934 total Chinese tourists. It is approximately double the number of Japanese visitors, 173,000, in the same time period.Chinese women were seen mainly

An Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 700 people in West Africa is moving faster than efforts to control the disease, the head of the World Health Organization warned as presidents from the affected countries met Friday in Guinea’s capital.Dr. Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general, said the meeting in Conakry “must be a turning point” in the battle against Ebola, which is now sickening people in three African capitals for the first time in history.At least 729 people have died since ca

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s top maker of smartphones, said Thursday its second-quarter net profit fell 19.5 percent from a year earlier after its mainstay handset business suffered a decline amid rising global competition. Net income came to 6.25 trillion won ($6.1 billion) in the April-June period, compared with 7.77 trillion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Sales fell 8.89 percent on-year to 52.35 trillion won in the second quarter. Its operating profit cam

A South Korean CEO serves for an average of 2.6 years, which is shorter than the minimum of three years endorsed by the country’s commercial law, according to data from corporate tracker CEO Score on Wednesday. The data showed that 367 chief executives, who accounted for 63.7 percent of the 576 executives surveyed, stepped down after less than three years. Another 102, or 17.7 percent, stayed on for less than a year. At an average of 3.94 years, the CEOs at LG Group affiliates were found to stay

The Big Mac index for South Korea rose to 4.0, up from 3.47 early this year, according to data released by The Economist on Tuesday. The index for South Korea was the 28th highest among 57 countries, based on the July 23 exchange rate of 1,023 won against the U.S. greenback. The Big Mac index, introduced by The Economist in 1986, evaluates exchange rates by comparing the prices of Big Macs in different countries. The higher the index for a country, the less undervalued its currency is against th

Members of South Korea’s younger generation are likely to receive less than what they paid into public benefits, a report showed Monday, highlighting the government’s demographic dilemma of having to balance its fiscal policy amid a rapidly aging society that is spurring welfare spending.People in their 20s and 30s during their lifetime will spend 100 million won ($97,561) more than the value of government benefits they will actually receive, according to a working paper coauthored by Bank of Ko

A fast-rising technology pioneer and the home ground of Samsung ― these are what come to mind when citizens of 17 major countries think of South Korea, according to a recent survey by Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.Respondents in India, Vietnam and Turkey were the most favorable toward Asia’s fourth-largest economy, while those in Poland, Germany and Egypt had relatively negative impressions.The corresponding survey was conducted last October with an aim to devise customized regional diplom

South Korean listed firms’ rewards for shareholders are extremely low compared to rivals in the United States, Canada and Japan, according to data compiled by Samsung Securities released on Thursday. U.S. companies in the S&P 500 index spent an average of 55 percent of their net profit on stock buybacks from 2008-2013, and their dividend payout ratio - the percentage of earnings a company gives to shareholders in the form of dividends - stood at an average of 40 percent.The data indicate that th

South Korea’s working population aged 60 and older grew larger than that of people in their 20s for the first time since 1963, when Statistics Korea began to compile the data.The number of workers aged 60 and older stood at 3.64 million people in the second quarter, up 5.6 percent from the same period last year. The number of workers in their 20s, meanwhile, inched up 0.5 percent to 36.1 million, the data showed.The figure indicates a population shift in age groups and poor market conditions for

South Korea’s venture firms appeared to be increasingly emerging as the new growth engine of the economy, according to figures from the Small and Medium Business Administration released Monday. Of the 69,801 venture firms in the country, 454 reported over 100 billion won ($97.6 million) in sales last year, up 9.1 percent from 2012. The number has steadily increased from 78 in 2005 to 202 in 2008 and 381 in 2011, the SMBA said. The combined sales of the venture firms were tallied at 101.2 trillio