Affluent Gangnam, Seocho lead price hikes in Seoul

Despite strong exports, South Korea’s current account balance slid to $4 billion in April this year, recording the smallest surplus in the past year, according to the Bank of Korea on Monday. Bank of Korea announced the current account balance had continued a surplus for 62 consecutive months, but the growth in exports was offset by higher dividend payouts to foreigner investors, surging oil pr...

South Korea's diplomatic tensions with China may weigh heavily on their upcoming talks on extending the bilateral currency swap deal, South Korea's central bank said Monday. China has taken a series of economic retaliations against South Korea, including a ban on group tours to South Korea, in protest of the deployment of an advanced US missile defense system in South Korea. Some South Koreans ...

South Korea has some room for a tax hike in the future, the finance minister nominee said Monday, lending support to the government's expansionary fiscal policies to create jobs and boost the economy. "South Korea can afford a tax increase, as it has a lower ratio of tax burden to the gross domestic product than other member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,...

South Korea on Monday started a full-fledged step to realize its slogan of the "income-led growth" through an 11.2 trillion-won ($9.99 billion) supplementary budget. The budget proposal -- which came less than one month after President Moon Jae-in took office -- is aimed at helping the needy get jobs and higher income. Moon has vowed to put his policy priority on creating jobs, especially for yo...

SEJONG -- South Korea on Monday outlined an 11.2 trillion-won ($9.99 billion) extra budget plan to create jobs and fuel the recent recovery momentum in the economy. The supplementary budget -- the first since President Moon Jae-in took office last month -- was approved at a Cabinet meeting. The budget proposal, just a fraction of the 400 trillion-won state budget for fiscal 2017, is set to be s...

South Korea's current account surplus rose slightly in April from a year earlier on an increased surplus in the goods account, central bank data showed Monday. The country's current account surplus reached $4 billion in April, compared with a surplus of $3.76 billion tallied a year ago, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea. The figure represents a surplus for 62 months in a ...

South Korea's foreign exchange reserves hit a record high in May due to a hike in the value of non-dollar currencies when converted into the US greenback, central bank data showed Monday. As of the end of May, the country's foreign exchange reserves came to $378.46 billion, up $1.89 billion from the previous month, the Bank of Korea said in a statement. Foreign exchange reserves consist of secu...

President Moon Jae-in’s chief secretary for economic policies said Sunday that the government’s planned 10 trillion won ($9 billion) supplementary budget would help reduce inequality. Jang Ha-sung, the chief presidential secretary for economic policies, called the budget a “timely and effective” tool to resolve South Korea’s deepening economic polarization, stressing that the nation’s export-dri...

With this year marking Korea‘s 10th anniversary since the country entered into the free trade agreement with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, South Korea‘s investment among ASEAN accounts for only five percent of total foreign direct investments, according to a recent report by EY Rediscover ASEAN. As a global accounting and consulting firm, EY Rediscover ASEAN’s report found that Kor...

The cancellation of the free trade agreement between Seoul and Washington will be more detrimental to US companies than their South Korean counterparts, a local think tank said Sunday. According to the Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade, if the South Korea-US pact is nullified by the Donald Trump administration, American companies that ship goods to South Korea will be required t...

South Korea's latest economic gains do not indicate that the country's financial condition is on a firm track, as the increases can be attributed to investment in the construction sector and not improvements in private consumption, a research showed Sunday. Hyundai Research Institute said in a report that South Korea's economic growth depends excessively on construction, while private consumptio...

South Korea's small and medium enterprises have high hopes for the new Moon Jae-in administration as they struggle with difficult times, industry sources said Sunday. The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business, or K-Biz, said its Chairman Park Sung-taek met with 25 regional SME business representatives in Yeosu, 455 kilometers south of Seoul, and exchanged views on the state of the region...

South Korea’s gross domestic product grew faster than expected in the first three months of this year, mainly due to stronger construction and exports, the Bank of Korea said Friday. Asia’s fourth-largest economy grew 1.1 percent in the first quarter from the previous quarter, the central bank said, updating seasonally-adjusted data from the previous estimate of 0.9 percent. The 1.1 percent qua...

Nearly half of South Korea's top 30 family-controlled conglomerates slashed their workforces in 2016 from a year earlier, data showed Friday, amid unfavorable market conditions at home and abroad. The combined workforce of the 30 leading business groups came to 1,305,939 as of the end of last year, down 1.1 percent, or 15,069, from a year earlier, according to the data from market tracker Chaebu...