Despite hopes building on a return to normal life around the world, the speed of economic contraction globally and in South Korea has been accelerating due to the pandemic over decreased spending, investment and production, casting a dark cloud over all-out efforts to contain the damages, figures by think tanks and central bank showed Tuesday.　 Korea’s economic contraction has been gaining momentum in recent months due to lackluster consumer spending and exports following risks stemming

Deloitte Korea said Monday it will be joining Deloitte Asia Pacific, a central business entity that combines regional operations. “Based on a partner-level vote conducted in April, we will officially join as member of Deloitte AP, starting June 1,” the local subsidiary of the New York-based accounting firm said in a release. Seeking to improve the level of services and to attract talent, Deloitte Korea will invest $22 million into the regional entity over the next four years, part

South Korea will save more than 300 billion won ($246 million) in 2021-2024 by aborting or merging state-subsidized projects, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said Friday. “We have made a rigorous assessment this year as an effective fiscal operation has become more crucial than ever in order to overcome the fallout of COVID-19,” said Vice Finance Minister Koo Yun-cheol in a state subsidy management committee meeting at Seoul Government Complex. Later in the day, Koo was name

South Korea will provide 1.5 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in special subsidies to irregular workers who lost their income or suffered crucial blows amid the COVID-19 quarantines, the finance minister said Thursday. The move came in line with the government’s struggles to sustain the nation’s job market amid an economy that is set to contract this year. “Seeking to enhance the employment safety net for neglected underprivileged workers, (the government) will execute a 1.5 tril

Former Shinhan Bank CEO Wi Sung-ho has joined Taekwang Group as an executive member of its insurance arm, filling his financial career vacuum after stepping down from his previous post. Wi on Monday attended his first day on the job as the new vice chairman of Heungkuk Life Insurance, according to the insurer’s officials. He will also serve as management adviser for Heungkuk Fire & Marine Insurance, Heungkuk Securities, Heungkuk Asset Management, Goryo Savings Bank and Yegaram Saving

In a preemptive risk management action, Shinhan Bank has registered the copyrights for the business guidelines and training videos that it has produced to comply with global economic sanctions, officials said Monday. The six articles that the bank has copyrighted include the full version of its economic sanctions compliance manual, the abridged version in Korean, the English version and three versions of related training videos in English, Chinese and Japanese. Last year, in light of the he

South Korea will kick off an emergency loan program worth 10 trillion won ($8.2 billion) in May, allowing novel coronavirus-hit small-business owners to borrow up to 10 million won from six commercial banks here, according to the nation’s chief fiscal policymaker. The action comes in the wake of an earlier lending program that had caused a major bottleneck due to the limited range of loan screening channels despite skyrocketing borrowing demand. “(The government) has designed a se

South Korea’s financial watchdog said Tuesday it plans to establish a bad bank in May to help companies recoup their losses from the troubled funds sold by Lime Asset Management. Citing the recent buying binge by retail stock investors here, Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Yoon Suk-heun urged them to be cautious about the excessive preference for high-risk and high-return investments amid the low-growth, low-interest rate environment. “During the remaining period of my term,

To shore up the global economy and contain the fallout from COVID-19, South Korea will provide $400 million for health projects in developing countries and postpone the maturity of debts worth $110 million, the country’s fiscal chief said Monday. Also, to keep up the momentum of the Moon Jae-in administration’s New Southern Policy and New Northern Policy, the government will double the volume of its official development assistance to $7 billion over the next three years. “

South Korea will provide international community its COVID-19-related technologies, ranging from the recognized test kits and “walk-thru” test booths, according to the country’s intellectual property agency. The Korean Intellectual Property Office on Friday expanded the range of the COVID-19 patent information navigation service of its webpage (https://www.kipo.go.kr/ncov) and also started to provide the English version of the uploaded information. Last month, KIPO kic

After marking the steepest contraction in more than a decade amid the new coronavirus fallout, South Korea’s economy is likely to confront further shocks over the upcoming months, financial authorities warned Thursday. “The production indexes for private consumption and service industries have hit their worst level since the (global) financial crisis,” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said in a meeting of economy-related ministers in Seoul. “The

South Korea’s credit card loans soared 25.6 percent on-year in March, amid the prolonged economic fallout of the COVID-19 outbreak, industry data showed Wednesday. Seven major credit card service providers -- Shinhan, KB Kookmin, Woori, Hana, Samsung, Hyundai and Lotte -- extended 4.3 trillion won ($3.47 billion) in new loans last month, up 882.5 billion won from a year earlier. The corresponding figures for January and February were up 1.6 percent and 16.6 percent, respectively. The

The Korean Intellectual Property Office will establish a patent information map to make the relevant data more accessible both to the public and to researchers seeking a cure for COVID-19, officials said Tuesday. Commissioner Park Won-joo on Tuesday visited Syntekabio, a genomic big data manager and artificial intelligence developer in Daejeon. With their counterparts from the Korean Society for Bioinformatics, KIPO officials discussed how AI could be used to analyze conventional drug informat

With the COVID-19 infection curve in South Korea having slowed down in recent weeks, the local bourse is gradually recovering its momentum on the back of an influx of foreign capital. But investors still find themselves confused as the virus continues to spread in other parts of the world and authorities voice warnings against “excessive optimism.” After hitting a 52-week high at 2,255.49 points Feb. 13, the main bourse Kospi plunged to its lowest point in 11 years -- 1,439.43 --

Amid the prolonged economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, South Korea has seen a surge in its number of those dropping out of the job market altogether, government data showed Sunday. As these people are not subject to the government’s unemployment allowances and other benefits, there have been growing calls that the current job indexes and related subsidy system should be revised in light of the market reality. According to data from Statistics Korea, the number of those not inte

The government on Thursday unveiled a second extra budget bill worth 7.6 trillion won ($6.2 billion) to provide emergency relief to households amid the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. The amount will be provided entirely by slashing other expenditure and readjusting government funds, without issuing additional bonds, officials said. “In order to finance the 9.7 trillion won required to pay out the emergency disaster relief funds, (the government) has drafted a 7.6 trillion

The South Korean government has issued a new brochure in English to share with the rest of the world its experiences of responding to the new coronavirus, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said Wednesday. The 90-page policy report -- titled “Flattening the curve on COVID-19” -- is the second on the topic that the country has published since receiving a request from the World Bank in late March. The latest brochure was drafted jointly by the Finance Ministry, the ICT Ministry, th

The COVID-19 pandemic will lead to an extensive slump in the global economy, much more than that of the Great Depression in 1930, according to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday. However, South Korea is likely to suffer fewer economic damages, due to its extensive quarantine measures and preemptive policy actions to counter the blow of the pandemic. In its revised World Economic Outlook report, the IMF forecast that the global economy this year will contract 3 percent on-year. The upda

South Korea’s export prices fell in March, as the fallout of the new coronavirus continued to rattle domestic and global markets, central bank data showed Tuesday. While global oil prices largely weighed upon the figure, the uptrend in the semiconductor business partly countered the downside effects. The export prices index in terms of local currency stood at 96.59 last month, down 1.1 percent from a month earlier and reaching the lowest since September 2016, according to preliminary

South Korea’s exports have fallen by more than 18 percent so far this month, government data showed Monday. Weighing further on the country’s export front is the fast-spreading pandemic in developed economies, as well as the gloomy outlook for the semiconductor market throughout the year. Asia’s fourth-largest economy saw the value of its exports stand at $12.21 billion this month as of last Friday, down 18.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Customs Servic