President Park Geun-hye on Tuesday vowed to increase pressure on North Korea to abandon its nuclear ambitions and provocations, underlining that the Korean Peninsula’s peace and independence depends on denuclearization.The speech, delivered on the nation’s Independence Movement Day, reflected the president’s drive to put the North Korean dilemma at the top of the agenda, above all other pending issues.(Yonhap)“The spirit of the March 1 movement was to promote the unity and independence of our pe

Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest automotive conglomerate, will start building a 105-story structure early next year on the land it bought from Korea Electric Power Corp.  last year, Seoul city officials said Wednesday.The massive building plan was finally agreed upon between the Seoul metropolitan government and Hyundai Motor after preliminary negotiations for the past six months on the urban development plan.The two sides had a series of meetings to review Hyundai's construction p

As the Bank of Japan began charging interest Tuesday on some deposits it holds, rates in the nation’s overnight interbank market are hovering around zero while banks try to catch up in setting negative interest rates on their systems.The unsecured overnight call rate fell to zero from the weighted average overnight call rate of 0.074 percent on Monday, according to Central Tanshi Co. “Trading in the unsecured overnight call market is centered around 0.001 percent with some at zero percent,” said

South Korea's M2 money supply shrank slightly from a month earlier in December, marking the first on-month drop in over a year, central bank data showed Monday.The M2 came to 2,241.8 trillion won ($1.85 trillion won) last month, down 0.1 percent from revised 2,244.3 trillion won the previous month, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea.The December tally marked a 7.5 percent increase from a year earlier.The M2 refers to currency in circulation, including bank debentures and deposi

Growth of South Korean banks' household lending slowed sharply in January from a month earlier as a recent U.S. rate hike weakened consumer spending here, central bank data showed Monday.Outstanding household loans from local banks came to 641.3 trillion won ($530 billion) as of end-January, up 2.2 percent from the previous month, according to data from the Bank of Korea.The on-month increase compares with a 6.9 percent gain in December.The rise was solely attributed to an increase in home-backe

The South Korean economy is dogged by plunging exports stemming from fast falling oil prices and weakening global demand along with domestic consumption, which started to show some signs of a slowdown, the finance ministry said Friday.Outbound shipments dived 18.6 percent to US$36.7 billion in January from a year earlier, marking the largest on-year drop in six years, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance in its latest economic assessment report called the Green Book.The monthly decl

South Korea on Friday unveiled a set of measures to help minimize any losses incurred by South Korean firms from the closure of a joint factory park in North Korea.North Korea expelled all South Korean nationals on Thursday from the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city and froze factory assets by South Korean firms in retaliation for Seoul's decision to shut down the complex. (Yonhap)Earlier this week, South Korea shut down the industrial park in response to the North's latest n

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Janet Yellen said Thursday that the Federal Reserve had no plans to move toward negative interest rates, following the Swedish central bank's rate cut deep into negative territory.But Fed Chair Yellen expressed "surprise" at how far European central banks had gone into negative territory, and given the weakness of inflation and the global economy, said the Fed was studying the issues involved "to be prepared.""I was surprised it was possible to move rates as negative as some c

HONG KONG (AFP) - A more than five percent plunge in Tokyo led another Asian rout Friday, bringing to an end one of the most painful weeks for investors as fears about the global economy -- and possible recession -- stalk trading floors.The steep losses in Japan came as the yen pushed to more than 16-month highs against the dollar and dealers continued a flight to safe havens.However, oil soared almost six percent following a report that producers' group OPEC could be willing to cooperate on out

South Korean stocks took another drubbing from a plunge in Japan and other major equity markets Friday as panicked investors dumped shares. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) shed 26.26 points, or 1.41 percent, to end at 1,835.28. This followed a nearly 3 percent plunge the previous day. (Yonhap)Trading volume was moderate at 465.67 million shares worth 6.2 trillion won ($5.1 billion), with decliners outpacing gainers 739 to 11

WASHINGTON (AFP) - In a landmark discovery for physics and astronomy, scientists said Thursday they have glimpsed the first direct evidence of gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time that Albert Einstein predicted a century ago.When two black holes collided some 1.3 billion years ago, the joining of those two great masses sent forth a wobble that hurtled through space and reached Earth on September 14, 2015, when it was picked up by sophisticated instruments, researchers announc

The head of a South Korean policy lender has been appointed a vice president of the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the finance ministry here said Wednesday.Hong Ky-ttack, the president of state-run Korea Development Bank, will serve as the chief risk officer of the AIIB. The new bank has five vice presidents. Hong Ky-ttackHe will start his three-year tenure after the AIIB sets the exact inauguration schedule, according to the ministry.It is the first time in 13 years for

South Korea plans to jack up its fiscal spending by an additional 21 trillion won ($17.4 billion) in the first quarter in an effort to pump-prime the economy struggling with faltering exports, the finance ministry said Wednesday.It will also extend a consumption tax cut program on passenger cars, which was set to finish at the end of December, to June to bolster domestic demand.Asia's fourth-largest economy is grappling with plummeting exports in the face of a crippling downturn in oil prices an

The government said Wednesday it will nurture the property market into becoming a high value-added service sector by boosting real estate investment funds in a bid to make it a new economic growth engine.The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said it will lower barriers and give tax incentives to boost the real estate investment trusts sector to spearhead the development of the local properties market.REITS are a type of security that invests in real estate to be traded on major exch

Oil bulls distressed that last week’s rally fizzled can find some comfort in forecasts for a bigger and longer rebound by the end of the year.Analysts are projecting prices will climb more than $15 by the end of 2016. New York crude will reach $46 a barrel during the fourth quarter, while Brent in London will trade at $48 in the same period, the median of 17 estimates compiled by Bloomberg this year show. A global surplus that fueled oil’s decline to a 12-year low will shift to deficit as U.S. s

Jeju International Airport resumed operations at noon on Monday after a 42–hour closure due to heavy snow and high winds. (Yonhap)Nearly 86,000 people were stranded and some 1,100 flights were canceled on the southern resort island over the weekend and early Monday. The island recorded its biggest snowfall in three decades at 11 centimeters as of Sunday, with more than 1 meter of snow in mountain areas. (khnews@heraldcorp.com)

Rival parties agreed Saturday to put a set of bills on North Korean human rights and corporate revitalization to a full-floor vote this week, ending a months-long dispute which had crippled the legislative procedures.They, however, failed to reach a final consensus on other disputed bills, such as those on terrorism prevention and labor reform bills as well as the revision bill to redraw the nation’s electoral map ahead of the April general elections.The floor leaders of the Saenuri Party and Th

SEOUL/JEJUDO ISLAND-- The number of frozen-pipe accidents and hypothermia patients soared while operations at the Jeju International Airport were paralyzed following the biggest snowfall in the region in three decades Sunday, as the nation experienced the coldest weather this winter.Just a day after the Korea Meteorological Administration issued a cold wave warning for Seoul, temperature in the capital dropped to minus 18 degrees Celsius on Sunday -- the coldest since January 2001. Also on Sunda

TOKYO (AFP) - Tokyo stocks plunged Thursday morning after a dive on Wall Street while a pick up in the yen took a bite out of exporters like Toyota and factory robotics giant Fanuc.The Japanese market led a regional sell-off, plunging almost four percent at the start, as jittery investors reacted to another drop in oil prices and a lukewarm Federal Reserve regional economies report. Renewed jitters about the world's top economy and broader concerns about global growth pushed currency traders int

NEW YORK (AP) -- There's no reason for panic. Worry, yes, but not panic.That was the opinion of some U.S. investment strategists after another free-fall on China's main stock market reverberated around the globe Thursday and sent the Dow Jones average to a loss of nearly 400 points.Stock prices in China fell so fast that for the second time in four days, circuit-breaker mechanisms kicked in and halted trading, this time after just 30 minutes.China's tumbling stock prices are, in themselves, noth