The Asian Development Bank’s upcoming annual meeting, originally slated to be held here in May, will be postponed to September in light of the coronavirus spread, according to ADB and the South Korean government. “As COVID-19 continues to spread around the globe, (ADB and Korea) have agreed to postpone the 53rd ADB Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors from the originally planned May 2-5 to Sept. 18-21,” the Ministry of Economy and Finance said in a release. “We p

Dark tourism has risen in recent years to respond to the contemporary generation’s drive for unique, impactful and meaningful experiences. In Europe, the Auschwitz concentration camp is a classic example of dark tourism, where traces of wartime genocides and ethnic cleansing are preserved. A more recent case is Ground Zero in New York’s Manhattan, where the World Trade Center Twin Towers had stood before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks occurred in 2011. As for the Korean Peninsula,

In an emergency move to counter the latest market disturbance caused by COVID-19, South Korea’s government on Wednesday activated a “phase one contingency plan,” expanding the cap on foreign exchange forward positions of banks. It also said that it will reduce the airport landing fees for airplanes and exempt highway tolls for express buses, as a relief measure for the transportation industry which took the hardest blow from the epidemic spread. Starting Thursday, local ba

In an emergency response to the latest stock market plummeting in the United States, the South Korean government on Tuesday warned that the ongoing coronavirus pandemic could possibly expand into an “unprecedented” economic crisis. “We should take into account that the spread of COVID-19 may lead to an unprecedented complex crisis situation for both the real economy and the financial market,” said Kim Yong-beom, first vice minister of finance, in an urgent meeting wit

In addition to Moon Jae-in government’s policy actions so far to curb housing prices, the escalating fallout of COVID-19 may daunt South Korea’s overheated real estate market, observers noted Monday. The key question is whether the impact of the pandemic will escalate to a global financial crisis. Last week, the Bank of Korea pointed out that COVID-19 has been exerting a more direct and drastic impact on the stock market, compared to past major epidemics. Throughout the outbre

South Korea’s financial authorities on Friday announced a six-month ban on short-selling in the local stock market, effective Monday, in an effort to reduce market volatility amid the spread of COVID-19. The hurried action came as the country’s stock market nose-dived earlier the same day, triggering a temporary trading halt in both the main bourse Kospi and the secondary Kosdaq. “Short-selling of all listed stocks on (the main bourse) Kospi and (secondary) Kosdaq and (ter

Weighed by the escalating impact of COVID-19, South Korea’s central bank hinted Friday that it may lean toward an earlier-than-expected policy rate cut as early as within this month. “Members of the Monetary Policy Board are currently contemplating the necessity to hold an extraordinary panel meeting,” the Bank of Korea said in a release. The monetary policy institution’s latest move came as Asia’s fourth-largest economy saw its stock market nosedive amid inve

South Korea saw its jobless rate decline and job creations extend the uptrend for several months straight in February, while some service industries have started reflecting the negative impact of the new coronavirus, government data showed Wednesday. However, with the infection rate taking a steep upturn, Asia’s fourth-largest economy is likely to face the full-scale fallout in its employment indexes starting this month. Korea added 492,000 new jobs in February from a month earlier,

South Korea vowed Tuesday to tighten regulations on stock short selling to stabilize the market amid increased volatility caused by the spread of the new coronavirus, and also the sudden drop in global oil prices. “As a market stabilizing action, (the government) will alleviate the requisites for (designating) overheated short selling and expand the transaction ban period (for these stocks),” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki was quoted as saying in a minist

In an effort to secure the supply of face masks and curb excessive profiteering, the government on Monday announced it will suspend punishment for monopolizers who voluntarily report themselves within a grace period. The action came on the sidelines of a rationing system that allows people to buy two protective masks per week from pharmacies on designated days. “We judged that the top priority is to secure as many (protective) masks as possible that may be distributed through p

Assuming the worst-case scenario regarding the ongoing new coronavirus outbreak, South Korea could see its GDP contract by as much as 1 percent this year, according to the Asian Development Bank. In its latest report “The Economic Impact of the COVID-19 Outbreak on Developing Asia,” the multilateral agency suggested four possible scenarios to assess the economic fallout that the fast-spreading epidemic may have on major Asian economies. The categories were classified into

Citibank Korea and Korea Development Bank will not accomodate financial authorities’ earlier arbitrary recommendation concerning compensation for disputed currency-linked derivatives sold several years ago, officials of the respective banks said Thursday. “After extensive internal discussions and consultations with the board of directors, Citibank does not propose to proceed as recommended (by the FSS),” the Korean subsidiary of the New York-based bank said in a release. &

Following the United States’ abrupt rate cut action and the escalating pessimism of global investors, South Korea finds itself with little choice but to bend prudence and lower its policy rate as soon as possible, according to market observers. Concerns are mounting, however, that Asia’s fourth-largest economy may already have missed the chance to take relevant monetary moves, considering the prolonged impact of the globally spreading COVID-19. The key agenda for Korea’s

South Korea’s government on Wednesday unveiled a supplementary budget bill amounting to 11.7 trillion won ($9.9 billion) to counter the prolonged economic fallout from the rapid spread of COVID-19. The bill, approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday, is set to be handed over to the National Assembly on Thursday for immediate effectuation. “The scale of the extra budget stands at 11.7 trillion won, of which revenue accounts for 3.2 trillion won and expenditure for 8.5 trillion won,&rdqu

South Korea’s upcoming supplementary state budget to fight the ongoing spread of the new coronavirus is anticipated to exceed 11.6 trillion won ($9.7 billion), according to a senior policymaker Tuesday. “In addition to the already announced set of comprehensive measures, (the government) has drafted an extra budget bill that exceeds 11 trillion won in volume,” said Lee Nak-yon on Facebook. Former Prime Minister Lee presently serves as chairman of the ruling Democratic Par

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has cut its outlook for South Korea’s growth this year by 0.3 percentage point, reflecting the fallout from the new coronavirus, the Ministry of Economy and Finance said Monday. In its biannual Interim Economic Outlook, the OECD forecast that the world economy would expand 2.4 percent this year, down 0.5 percentage point from its earlier prediction in November last year. The outlook for next year, in contrast, was raised 0.3 per

South Korea’s government will be submitting an extra budget bill this week to cope with the fast spread of the new coronavirus, the country’s top fiscal policymaker said Monday, requesting cooperation from parliamentarians. Though specific details have yet to be yet revealed, the budget will far exceed the 6.2 trillion won ($5.18 billion) allotted in 2015 to deal with the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome. “The government’s supplementary budget bill will be

South Korea’s economic indexes for February could plunge drastically, taking the full impact of the coronavirus outbreak, the government said Friday. “The fast-spreading COVID-19 is increasingly weighing on consumer sentiment and economic activities,” said Kim Yong-beom, first vice minister of economy and finance, during a macroeconomy-finance policy meeting at the Korea Federation of Banks in central Seoul. The meeting was attended by officials from the Financial Service

Yeouido, packed with financial companies and home to the National Assembly, was on its guard against the new coronavirus on Friday following news of confirmed cases in the area. The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea said early in the morning that one of its employees was confirmed with COVID-19 around 7:30 p.m. the previous day. The bank immediately initiated emergency measures, shutting down its headquarters in west Yeouido and carrying out extensive quarantine. Some 800 employees w

South Korea’s government announced Thursday that it will share the cost burden of landlords who voluntarily offer a rental discount to tenants amid the new coronavirus fallout, according to the top fiscal policymaker. “For landlords who reduce the rental fees for their small business owner tenants during the first six months of this year, (the government) will reduce 50 percent of the (lease) reduction amount from (their) income tax or corporate tax, regardless of their total in