Bananas were the most sold fruit in the first half of the year, according to leading retail giant E-mart on Friday, replacing the longtime favorite apples. E-Mart said it sold 37.6 billion won ($32.48 million) worth of bananas in the January-June period, up 8.7 percent from the same period last year. The amount tops numbers for apples that stood at 33.1 billion won, down 16.2 percent from last y...

Sales of frozen foods have risen sharply in recent months, industry data showed Thursday, amid an increase in one-person households in South Korea, industry data showed Thursday. GS25, South Korea's second-largest convenience store chain, said its frozen food sales grew 31.5 percent during the first six months of this year from a year earlier. The numbers reflect preferences for such food among...

Amid drawn-out speculation over the future of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement, the two countries have been voicing differing views regarding the mutual benefits of the bilateral trade deal, which has now reached its fifth year. US President Donald Trump is arguing that the current stipulations are unfair and is the reason for the country’s worsening trade deficit. Trump has referred to the KO...

South Korean department stores saw their sales fall in May as more consumers opted for online shopping, government data showed Thursday. The department stores' sales index dropped 4.6 percent in May compared to the same period last year, according to the data from Statistics Korea. Since the beginning of this year, the index has been on a downturn, recording 1.5 percent, 5.6 percent and 3.5 per...

Households with loans use about a third of their disposable income on debt repayment, statistics showed Thursday, undermining efforts to spur consumption through spending. The National Assembly Budget Office analyzed figures provided by Statistics Korea and found that a household with loans on average had 46.35 million won ($40,147) in disposable income last year, of which 15.48 million won, or ...

In a meeting with business leaders accompanying him on a trip to the US last week, President Moon Jae-in asked them to “trust in the new government’s economic policy, invest more and create jobs.” Describing himself as both pro-labor and pro-business, Moon said the core of his policy was to forge a fair and transparent environment for competition, which he said would be good for doing business a...

Foreign investors bought shares traded on the South Korean and Asian stock markets in the first half of this year despite concerns over capital flight as the US marked up its interest rates, industry data showed Wednesday. Foreign investors purchased $29.1 billion worth of stocks more than they sold in Asian countries, up compared to $27.6 billion for all of last year, according to statistics by...

Prices of vegetables jumped sharply in recent weeks due to heavy downpours that followed a long drought, industry sources said Wednesday. The price of napa cabbage soared 26.2 percent to 1,416 won ($1.2) per kilogram Tuesday from a month earlier, according to the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation. The price of spinach jumped 12.7 percent to 4,568 won per kilogram from 4,053 won, whi...

South Korea's national debt as measured in outstanding state bonds issued exceeded 950 trillion won ($826.2 billion) last month, mainly due to the government's expansionary fiscal policy to cope with an economic slowdown, data showed Wednesday. The conservative administrations of ex-Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye had favored the issuance of Treasury bills and various types of bonds t...

South Korean manufacturers' business sentiment reached the highest in over two years, but pessimism still outweighed optimism overall, a survey showed Wednesday. A survey of some 2,200 manufacturing firms put the business sentiment index at 94 in the third quarter, up five points from the second quarter but under the threshold of 100, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry said. The reading...

South Korea's foreign exchange reserves hit a record high in June due to a hike in the value of non-dollar currencies when converted into the U.S. greenback, central bank data showed Wednesday. As of the end of June, the country's foreign exchange reserves came to $380.57 billion, up $2.11 billion from the previous month, the Bank of Korea said in a statement. Foreign exchange reserves consist ...

The South Korean finance ministry said Tuesday that it tightened its monitoring of the local financial market following the latest missile launch by North Korea. After launching a ballistic missile earlier in the day, Pyongyang claimed in an official announcement that it has successfully test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile directly challenging calls by the international community to...

Mortgage loans by those in their 20s and 30s have risen dramatically in the past 4 1/2 years, government data showed Tuesday, raising concerns of overdue payments. The average household whose head is in his 20s and 30s had 115 million won ($100,104) in mortgage loans last September, up 37.6 percent from 4 1/2 years earlier, according to figures by the Bank of Korea. Those in their 40s had 116 m...