Self-employed, young job-seekers take hardest blow from epidemic fallout

SEJONG -- South Korea will join a move by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help low-income nations recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Wednesday. Hong made the remarks during a virtual meeting with IMF Director Kristalina Georgieva earlier in the day, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in a statement. South Korea also supports an increase in funding for the IMF as demand for loans and grants jumped in the wake of the pandemic, Hong said. E

About 37 percent of firms in South Korea failed to repay the interest on their debts in 2019, central bank data showed Wednesday, highlighting concerns about deteriorating corporate financial status amid economic gloom. The number of so-called marginal or zombie firms is expected to rise further this year as the coronavirus pandemic devastated the nation's economy. According to the Bank of Korea (BOK), 36.6 percent of 384,877 firms made less profit than their interest expenses for a third co

Hyundai Motor Group said Wednesday it will overhaul its product quality control process following engine recalls and fires in an electric model. Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. plan to simplify the overall quality control process to better focus on resolving problems, a Hyundai official said over the phone. Hyundai and Kia, which together form the world's fifth-biggest carmaker by sales, will also simplify the decision-making process to respond to customers' demands as qu

South Korea's producer prices rose for the fourth straight month in September, due largely to increased costs of agricultural, livestock and fishery goods, central bank data showed Wednesday. The producer price index, a barometer of future consumer inflation, inched up 0.1 percent in September from the previous month, slowing from a 0.5 percent on-month gain in August, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). It marked the fourth consecutive month of increase after the price index stayed flat in

SEJONG -- South Korea's exports fell 5.8 percent on-year in the first 20 days of October amid the fallout from the new coronavirus outbreak, customs data showed Wednesday. The nation's outbound shipments stood at $25.2 billion in the Oct. 1-20 period, compared with $26.7 billion a year ago, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Per-day exports, however, rose 5.9 percent on-year in the Oct. 1-20 period, the Korea Customs Service said. This month, fewer working days from the Ch

South Korean power plant builder Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction Co. said Tuesday it has signed a $787 million deal to build a coal-fired power plant in northeastern Vietnam. Under the deal with Vapco, a Vietnamese unit of the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. (Kepco), Doosan Heavy Industries will build the plant and provide equipment including boilers from March 2021 to February 2025, the company said in a regulatory filing. Early this month, the board of Kepco decided to take

South Korea’s major financial state-owned corporations turned out to have imposed excessive interest amounts that far exceed the principal upon small-sized debtor businesses, raising skepticism about their “inclusive finance” policy functions, data showed Tuesday. According to data submitted to Rep. Min Hyung-bae, lawmaker of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and a member of the parliamentary finance committee, the four state-owned companies affiliated with the Financial

   Women in leadership positions are still rare at South Korea’s state-run financial institutions, despite the government’s policy drive to empower female workers at the public offices, data showed Tuesday.  As of 2019, eight out of nine public financial bodies in the country were found to have zero women at the executive level, with the exception being the Korea Asset Management Corp., in which two women are holding senior management roles, said Rep. Bae Jin-gyo of

South Korea said Tuesday it will lift the export ban on nonwoven fabrics this week that are used to produce protective masks as the domestic supply of the materials and masks stabilized. Under the decision, the country will lift the regulation that bans firms from exporting more than 15 percent of their production of nonwoven fabrics starting Friday, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Earlier this year, the country ran out of melt-blown nonwoven fabric filters amid soarin

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Tuesday it has developed an AI robot for metalworking in the construction of ships for the first time in the world. The AI hot working robot, called Goknuri, is now used to shape steel plates into curved ones at the front and the rear of a steel hull in Daewoo Shipbuilding's shipyard in Geoje Island, about 400 kilometers south of Seoul, South Korea's leading shipbuilder said. Hot working is the metalworking process carried out above 800 C

Sales of bonds and certificates of deposits (CDs) in South Korea climbed more than 14 percent in the third quarter of the year from a year earlier, data showed Tuesday. The value of those debt instruments issued in the July-September period came to 114 trillion won ($100 billion), up 14.1 percent from a year ago, according to the data from the Korea Securities Depository (KSD). The third-quarter amount, however, was down 14.8 percent from the previous quarter. The KSD didn't give reasons for

South Korea's demand deposit turnover ratio hit an all-time low in August amid growing uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic, central bank data showed Tuesday, The ratio, or withdrawals of demand deposits divided by the average deposit balance, came to 15.5 for August, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). It was the lowest figure since January 1985, when the BOK began tracking related data. The previous record low was 15.6 posted in May this year. The turnover ratio of de

Even state-run think tanks are concerned about fast-rising debt without payment resource

Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp. said Monday they plan to reflect a combined 3.4 trillion won ($3 billion) in provisions for product recall and quality control in their balance sheets for the third quarter of the year, indicating that they are set to swing to net losses in the July-September period. Hyundai and Kia, which together form the world's fifth-biggest carmaker by sales, set aside massive provisions for additional costs for the recall of a faulty engine and preempt