The South Korean currency depreciated at a sharp clip due to the nuclear tests conducted by North Korea last year, a central bank report showed Thursday. The report published by the Bank of Korea examined the movement of the won-dollar rate for five trading sessions before and after nuke tests between 2008 and 2017. It used an analysis model assuming that news articles on North Korean provocati...

South Korea and China on Thursday began the first round of talks to expand the scope of the bilateral free trade agreement to better cover the service and investment sectors and increase business opportunities for both sides. The two nations implemented the FTA, which is focused on lowering tariffs on goods, in December 2015 and recently agreed to hold negotiations to upgrade the trade deal. Ki...

South Korea's central bank chief said Thursday that the latest interest rate hike in the United States will have little impact on the South Korean market. "The US Federal Reserve's decision met market expectations, and as a result, the US market remained steady," Bank of Korea Gov. Lee Ju-yeol told reporters before attending an emergency meeting with officials in Seoul. "In South Korea, I expect...

Concerns are rising that Korea, which is heavily dependent on exports for growth, will become the biggest victim of a looming global trade war prompted by US protectionist measures and retaliatory moves from other major economies. China and the EU are poised to react strongly if they are subject to hefty US tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, which are slated to come into force Friday. The t...

Change in online consumer patterns reflects shifting views on gender roles

Concerns mount on possible compromises in bilateral FTA amendment talks

South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed Tuesday to work together to fight trade protectionism in the global market, Seoul's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said. The agreement came in their phone conversation held earlier in the day. "President Moon and Prime Minister Trudeau noted both South Korea and Canada are highly dependent on trade, and expr...

Vietnam is expected to outstrip the United States as Korea's second-largest export destination in 2020 thanks to a bilateral free trade deal, a report said Tuesday. "Bilateral trade is expected to exceed $100 billion in 2020, making Vietnam the No. 2 destination for Korean exports after China," said the report from the Korea International Trade Association. Vietnam surpassed Hong Kong and emerg...

The US Federal Reserve is not expected to unveil a surprise shift in its monetary policy position following this week's rate-setting meeting, market analysts said Tuesday. The Federal Open Market Committee is tipped to raise interest rates at the Tuesday-Wednesday meeting to be presided over first by new Fed Chair Jerome Powell. A growing number of market experts have predicted that the US Fede...

More Korean men tend to view income and job status as essential factors for a thriving dating life compared to Japanese men, a recent report said. The report, released in late 2017, delves into the correlation between youths' economic self-reliance and family formation in Korea and Japan. The project, led by researcher Cho Sung-ho of the Korea Institute for Health and Social Affairs, cites two ...

South Korea's commerce minister on Monday raised cautious hopes for getting an exemption from the United States over proposed tariffs on Korean steel products, as negotiators engage in last-minute lobbying to minimize the impact on the local industry. Paik Un-gyu, minister of trade, industry and energy, said South Korea has been negotiating with US officials through multiple channels to earn a r...

The Moon Jae-in administration’s employment policy, which relies on fiscal spending and is unaccompanied by regulatory and labor reforms, will do little to ease Korea’s deteriorating situation of youth joblessness, experts say. What is further concerning is that a set of pro-labor measures taken by the administration is pushing an increasing number of local firms to move production abroad, reduc...

SEJONG -- Korea's finance minister has proposed an economic consultative body with Latin American countries as a means to strengthen cooperation, the finance ministry said Monday. In a meeting with Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Sunday, Seoul's Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon contended that the consultative body is necessary t...

The burden of buying a house in Seoul has risen to a 6-year high as demand for homes in the affluent Gangnam district surged despite the government's measures to cool the property market, data showed Monday. The Korea Housing Affordability Index rose to 116.7 in the fourth-quarter of last year, up 6.4 percentage points from a quarter earlier, according to the Korea Housing-Finance Corp. It was ...

Over the past three decades, the employment increase rate and the proportion of paid workers who are women increased noticeably to surpass those of men, according to data by the Korea Employment Information Service. The number of female employees in South Korea that had stood at 6,771,000 in 1988 increased 67.7 percent to 11,356,000 last year. The increase rate for men was 52.2 percent. The eco...