Anti-government protests in Egypt will likely have a limited impact on South Korean financial companies in light of their minimal exposure to the North African country, the financial regulator said Monday.   As of the end of September, domestic financial companies owned no securities of or loans to Egypt and their borrowing from the country reached only US$6 million, the Financial Supervisory Ser

   South Korea's foreign ministry said Monday it is working on increasing the number of flights from Cairo to Seoul to transport South Korean nationals back home amid raging anti-government protests there.   "As the situation gets worse, there aren't enough flights compared to the number of our people who would like to leave Egypt," said a ministry official. "We are in talks with Korean Air to inc

  South Korea's anti-trust watchdog is investigating price-rigging allegations that Korean Air, the nation's flag carrier, colluded in fixing prices with a Mongolian airline company for flight services to the central Asian country, officials said Monday.   The investigation by the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) focuses on relatively expensive flight ticket prices between Incheon and Ulan Bator offere

  South Korea's industrial output grew for the 18th straight month in December, suggesting the economic recovery remains on track, a government report showed Monday.   According to the report by Statistics Korea, production in the mining and manufacturing industries expanded 9.8 percent last month from the same month a year earlier. The output has expanded since July 2009.    Production grew 2.8 p

  The Obama administration will likely submit the pending free trade deal with South Korea to Congress in late March after undergoing a series of congressional hearings next month, reports said Sunday.   U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk is expected to appear at hearings at the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee in mid-February to "pave the way for a mock markup of th

  South Korean manufacturers' business confidence inched down for February on concerns that rising raw material prices could crimp their profitability, the central bank said Monday.   The index of manufacturers' outlook on business conditions reached 91 for February, down from 92 for January, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The index measures manufacturers' outlook on business conditions for

  South Korea's computer chip exports are expected to reach $52.5 billion in 2011, fueled by greater overseas demand for system semiconductors, the government said Monday.   The total represents a growth of 3.5 percent compared to the previous year, with outbound shipments of system semiconductors used to make products like smartphones and tablet PCs expanding 18.7 percent on-year to $19.1 billion

  South Korea sent a North Korean man back to his communist homeland Friday after he drifted across the maritime border to the South in a boat in waters off the peninsula's west coast last month, the Red Cross said.   The man, who has since expressed his desire to return home, was handed over to the North Friday afternoon at the border village of Panmunjom inside the Demilitarized Zone separating

  South Korean stocks closed 0.34 percent lower on Friday as investor sentiment was dampened by the downgrade of Japan's credit rating by Standard & Poor's, analysts said. The local currency rose against the U.S. dollar.   The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) declined 7.14 points to 2,107.87, snapping a four-day run of gains.Trading volume was moderate at 347.8 million shares wo

  The Seoul Metropolitan Government said Friday it will make its Sunday counseling tour of foreign resident communities a year-round event from this year.   Since 2009, city officials have visited neighborhoods with high foreigner population every Sunday, except during winters, to offer legal and other counseling services especially to foreign workers, students and marriage immigrants who cannot s

  A Seoul court sentenced a former senior prosecutor to two-and-a-half years in jail for accepting a luxury car and other kickbacks from a businessman in return for ordering his subordinate to investigate a case against the bribe giver's rival.   The 52-year-old, surnamed Jeong who formerly served at the Seoul Central Prosecutors' Office, was charged with accepting bribes worth 46 million won (US$

Yoo Jeong-bok, agriculture minister (Yonhap News)  South Korea's farm minister offered Friday to step down over the severest foot-and-mouth (FMD) outbreak in the country's history once ongoing quarantine efforts arrest the spread of the highly contagious animal disease.   Yoo Jeong-bok said in a news conference that he plans to take full responsibility for the outbreak that forced the government t

  TOKYO -- North Korean leader Kim Jong-il was against a third-generation power succession, but had no other option in order to stabilize the troubled communist regime, a Japanese newspaper quoted Kim's eldest son as saying in its Friday edition.   Kim Jong-nam, believed to be in his late 30s, has lived abroad for years after apparently falling out of favor with his father for attempting to enter

 South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-na said Friday she is on the right track for the world championships in March and is looking forward to returning to the ice.   In an e-mail interview with her Seoul-based agency, All That Sports, Kim said she's been gearing up for the championships by building up her strength and focusing on her new programs.   "There's plenty of time left until the competition,

Samsung Electronics shares surpassed the 1,000,000 won mark on Jan. 19 in an intraday trading. (Yonhap News)Samsung Electronics Co., the world's largest maker of computer memory chips, said Friday that its fourth-quarter operating profit fell 12.4 percent from a year ago as weak demand for TVs battered flat-screen panel prices.     Operating profit stood at 3.01 trillion won ($2.7 billion) in the

   South Korea's biggest telecom company KT Corp. said Friday that it returned to the black in the fourth quarter of 2010 from a net loss a year earlier, helped by brisk sales of Apple Inc.'s iPhone.    Net profit reached 105.1 billion won ($94.3 million) in the October-December period, compared with a net loss of 430.5 billion won one year earlier, it said in a regulatory filing. The loss in the

   South Korea's current account surplus widened in December from the previous month on robust exports, with the country posting its fourth-largest ever surplus last year, the central bank said Thursday.   The current account surplus reached $2.11 billion in December, up from $1.93 billion the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account is the broadest measure of cros

 The number of one-man businesses in South Korea sharply expanded in 2010 on the back of the country's rapidly growing mobile content market, data showed Wednesday.   The rise came on the heels of a smartphone boom that hit South Korea last year following the release of Apple Inc.'s iPhone and Samsung Electronics Co.'s Galaxy S smartphone. There are an estimated 7 million smartphone users in the c

   SAN FRANCISCO -- U.S. officials were surprised at the high level of sophistication in North Korea's uranium enrichment facility, an American nuclear scientist said, when he gave them the first-hand account of what he saw in the communist nation.   Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University professor, visited North Korea's main nuclear complex in Yongbyon during a trip to the isolated nation in Nov

 South Korea's largest mobile carrier SK Telecom Co. said Monday that it will release a smartphone that can also serve as a set-top box, playing content on personal computers, tablet PCs and TVs.    The smartphone named "Galaxy S hopping," made by Samsung Electronics Co., will hit shelves in the local market this week, SK Telecom said in a statement.    The new phone represents the company's effor