By Judy Hsu This year, for International Women’s Day, the United Nations has called for countries around the world to “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress”. This crucial call underlines the need to address the deficit in gender equality measures as economies continue to grow. The call also emphasizes the imperative of prioritizing women’s economic empowerment because a stark reality persists: There continues to be a wide economic disparity between men and women in ma

Consumer price growth resurged to above 3 percent in February, showing that Korea may be facing stickier-than-expected inflation, data suggested Wednesday. Consumer prices, a key gauge of inflation, advanced 3.1 percent on-year last month, according to data from Statistics Korea. Though price growth fell to 2.8 percent in January, dipping into the 2 percent range for the first time in six months, it rebounded to above 3 percent within a month. The uptick marks the first time in four months that

South Korea’s gross national income per capita rebounded to over $33,000 in 2023, marking a 2.6 percent rise on-year, while the national economy grew by 1.4 percent, preliminary data from the Bank of Korea showed Tuesday. The GNI per capita, a measure of the amount of money earned per person in a nation, stood at $33,745 last year, advancing by 2.6 percent from $32,886 in 2022. The figure, drawn up by dividing national income in a year by population, helps evaluate the standard of living.

Local crypto exchanges are enjoying a boom in their returns amid the snowballing bitcoin rally. Upbit, the largest crypto exchange here, saw its transaction volume in the past 24 hours surpass 12 trillion won ($8.9 billion) as of Thursday at 3 p.m. It was the first time for the figure to go over 10 trillion won since 2021. As of Friday 2:15 p.m., its transaction volume in the past 24 hours stood at 9.96 trillion won. The volume is similar in size to the average daily transaction volume for Kospi

The National Assembly passed the revision bill to raise the Export-Import Bank of Korea's capital limit from the current 15 trillion won to 25 trillion won ($12.24 billion to $15 billion) on Thursday, giving the policy lender some extra room to level up its financing for the arms export deal to Poland. The revision of the Export-Import Bank of Korea Act was passed as a total of 209 lawmakers voted in favor of the bill, while 29 voted against it. There were 34 abstentions. Under the revision

The price of bitcoin traded in Korea climbed to its highest ever Thursday, fueled by a global rally initiated from spot exchange-traded funds and an impending halving. Bitcoin, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency, traded in Korea at up to 90 million won ($67,490) on the country’s largest crypto exchange, Upbit, at 3:47 p.m. On the previous day, it broke its previous high of 82.7 million won at around 6 p.m. for the first time since November 2021. After peaking at 90 million won, bitco

South Korea's fertility rate continued its steep fall last year as it hit a record low of 0.72, darkening prospects for the country that already has the world's lowest fertility rate, data showed Wednesday. The country's fertility rate -- the average number of children a woman has during her lifetime -- came to 0.72 last year, down from 0.78 in the previous year, according to the preliminary data presented by Statistics Korea. It is the lowest level since 1970 when the state-run s

Hahn & Co., the nation's largest private equity firm in terms of assets under management, is to set up a joint venture with Kolon Industries, a chemical and textile manufacturing unit under Kolon Group, to bolster its industrial film business. The two entities have signed a binding memorandum of understanding to cooperate for the launch of the joint venture, according to a disclosure filed by Kolon Industries Tuesday. “The related parties are discussing the details. An announcemen

Former Industry Minister Yoon Jin-shik officially took the reins of the Korea International Trade Association, the nation's largest trade lobby group, after being approved at a general meeting on Tuesday. "Korea's exports experienced difficulties with the slowdown of the global economy but it will improve," Yoon said at a press event held after the meeting. "The biggest problem with exports is that they focus heavily on a certain region, while products are limited. The s

South Korean authorities on Monday introduced a set of measures encouraging listed companies to boost their valuation as a part of efforts to shake off the so-called “Korea discount” which has been haunting the local capital market for decades. Under the “corporate value-up program,” firms listed on the Korean stock market will be advised to disclose their plans to enhance corporate value and shareholder returns while releasing related financial metrics for better communi

KB Kookmin Bank, one of Korea’s top five commercial lenders here, launched its new Cambodian unit, KB Prasac Bank, to tap deeper into the market by offering loan programs for small merchants and digital banking services. KB Prasac Bank, Cambodia's fourth-largest commercial lender in terms of assets, held an opening ceremony in Phnom Penh on Friday (local time), according to the Korean firm. More than 700 individuals attended the event, including KB Financial Group Chairman Yang Jong-h

The Export-Import Bank of Korea, or Eximbank, said Thursday it signed a memorandum of understanding with its German counterpart, KfW IPEX-Bank, pledging to cooperate in financing projects related to strategic technologies and supply chain networks. KfW IPEX-Bank is a specialist bank for export and project financing owned by Germany's main development bank Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau, which translates as Credit Institute for Reconstruction. Eximbank Chairman Yoon Hee-sung met with Velibor

More men are reporting themselves as "economically inactive" -- those not working nor seeking work -- to provide full-time parenting for their children, data showed Wednesday. The number of men who were economically inactive in 2023 citing child care stood at around 16,000, according to Statistics Korea, marking an all-time high since related data was first compiled in 1999. The figure posted a 37.4 percent surge from 12,000 the year before and grew by nearly threefold in a decade from

South Korean internet giant Naver is pushing to have its online comics operator Webtoon Entertainment go public on the US Nasdaq as early as June, according to a recent Bloomberg report. Webtoon Entertainment is the head office for the online comics business Naver Webtoon, and has been based in Los Angeles since May 2020. The firm, with a 71.2 percent stake owned by Naver, manages the overall online comics operations and the content platform business. While there has been talk that the online co

Office lease prices in Seoul marked a record-high increase last year backed by strong demand amid low vacancies, a report released by a real estate analytics firm showed Monday. Seoul's office lease market has been showing a strong performance, with rent rates being pushed up, a CBRE Korea report showed. The average face rent for Seoul offices posted the sharpest on-year growth of 8.8 percent in 2023, up 2.1 percentage points from the previous year’s 6.7 percent. Face rent is the amou

Bithumb Korea, the operator of the country’s No. 2 cryptocurrency exchange Bithumb, has failed to seal a deal with major local lender KB Kookmin Bank for issuance of real-name accounts, jeopardizing its plan to attract more traders. KB Kookmin Bank informed Bithumb last week that it will not partner with the crypto exchange to provide real-name accounts, industry officials confirmed Friday. In Korea, virtual asset exchanges are required to utilize real-name accounts under commercial banks

South Korean companies are facing increasing shareholder activism with the government's recent push for improvements in corporate governance expected to fuel the trend, according to industry experts on Thursday. A report released Thursday by Diligent Market Intelligence, a solution from governance software provider Diligent, showed a record-high number of 77 companies headquartered in Korea were targeted by activist campaigns in 2023, outnumbering its economic peers such as Singapore and Ho

Foreign investors have been racking up “underperforming shares” on the Kospi, Korea’s main bourse, backed by increased expectations of the government’s initiative to boost the local stock market. Since the government late last month vowed to come up with new measures to tackle the "Korea discount," offshore investors are increasingly flocking to invest in firms with low price-to-book ratios in anticipation of stock price recoveries. PBR is a metric used to compa

The sale of top container shipper HMM drifted away late Tuesday, as negotiations between two state agencies and a local consortium broke off after weeks of remaining at odds over the terms. The state-run Korea Development Bank and Korean Ocean Business Corp. holding a combined 57.9 percent stake in HMM, had been in talks with a local consortium formed by agri-food giant Harim and private equity firm JKL Partners, to sell off the shipper. The stock purchase agreement deal was to be worth 6.4 tril

Top financial groups here have put forward animated characters as their faces in a bid to woo a wider range of customers. Woori Financial Group has recently brought back its band of animated characters, WiBee Friends, pulling them out of a six-year hiatus. Woori Bank CEO Cho Byung-kyu pushed for the return of the characters, seeing the need to appeal to customers with a softer, friendlier image, according to the firm. With Woori jumping on the bandwagon, all four of Korea’s top financial g