The head of South Korea's major business lobby said Monday he will soon ask President Moon Jae-in to meet with leaders of the country's big businesses to discuss ways to create new jobs and prop up the economy. The Moon administration is seeking to sharply raise the minimum wage with the aim of addressing income disparities and boosting economic growth through job creation and increased household revenue.Speaking to reporters, Park Yong-man, chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce & Industry,

More corporate CEOs are becoming less optimistic about the immediate future of the global economy compared with last year, an international survey said Monday.   The poll carried out by consulting firm KPMG International said that out of 1,261 CEOs from 10 countries who were canvassed between Feb. 21 and April 11 this year, 65 percent were confident about global economic growth for the next three years. Although still a majority, the number lags behind the 80 percent tallied last year.

Information technology spending by more than 150 South Korean financial firms hit a record high in 2016, the central bank said Monday, in an apparent move to meet the growing demands for more wired banking services.A total of 153 South Korean financial firms set aside 5.69 trillion won ($4.94 billion) for IT-related spending last year, the highest since 1992, when the Bank of Korea began to collect related data. (Yonhap)The move came as a growing number of people do their banking on their comput

LG Electronics said Monday its high-end organic light-emitting diode TVs have won positive responses from European industry trackers.The South Korean tech giant said the LG OLED TVs topped evaluations conducted by top consumer agencies from Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium and Portugal. (Yonhap)LG Electronics said European consumer magazines, including Spain-based OCU, the Netherlands-based Consumentenbond and Sweden-based Rad&Ron, all named the LG OLED TVs as the best-performing products

A Malaysian man in his 30s was arrested for stealing money from an elderly man in Ulsan through voice phishing, police said Monday.On June 29, a Malaysian citizen phoned a man in his 80s, posing as a police detective and warning that the elderly man’s personal information had been compromised. The man was advised to withdraw everything from his bank account and store it inside a drawer. He was also assigned a new password for his front door. (Yonhap)The suspect then broke into the house and stol

Woori Card, a South Korean credit-card firm, said Monday it has raised $50 million by selling dollar-denominated bonds in Japan.Woori Card, however, did not give specifics on the sale of so-called Shogun bonds, including the pricing. (Yonhap)Shogun bonds refer to debt issued in Japan by a non-Japanese firm and denominated in a currency other than the Japanese yen.Proceeds from the sale of the two-year debt will be used to repay its maturing debt and finance its businesses, the card company said.

South Korean stocks traded higher late Monday morning as market behemoth Samsung Electronics gathered ground on the back of its robust second-quarter earnings outlook.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 4.18 points, or 0.18 percent, to 2,384.05 as of 11:15 a.m. Tech shares continued to trade higher, with Samsung Electronics increasing 1.34 percent and No. 2 chipmaker SK hynix moving up 0.45 percent.Top steelmaker POSCO also advanced 0.84 percent, and Korea Zinc moved up 0.11 pe

Hyundai Motor said Monday it will launch its first racing car for sale this year, a move to enhance its brand image in global markets.Hyundai Motor has developed the i30 N TCR based on the i30 N hatchback, which has completed a 24-hour endurance race at the 24 Hours Nurburgring race in Germany for two consecutive years, the company said in a statement. Hyundai Motor's i30 N TCR races on a track in Italy in this undated photo. (Photo courtesy of Hyundai Motor) (Yonhap)"We are planning to further

Hanwha Q Cells Co., the world's leading solar cell maker, said Monday it has produced 1 billion units of Q.ANTUM CELLs since the product was commercialized in 2014.The Q.ANTUM CELL refers to one of Hanwha's solar cells, which are used to generate electricity through solar power. (Yonhap)The company said the Q.ANTUM CELL adopted the Passivated Emitter and Rear Cell technology for the first time in the industry. The technology centers on inserting a rear reflection to improve power efficiency.If c

Transactions among South Korean financial firms rose 3.7 percent in 2016 from a year earlier, the central bank said, a move that could pose a potential problem in the financial market in the event of a surge in non-performing loans.Transactions among banks and non-banking lenders came to 1,970 trillion won ($1.7 trillion) at the end of last year, up 69.9 trillion won from 2015, the Bank of Korea said in a recent report.The amount of transactions among the financial firms has been on a rise in re

Rising home prices and loan interest rates have made houses the least affordable in over four years, the latest data showed Monday.According to the Korea Housing-Finance, the Korea-housing affordability index rose to 58.9 in the first three months of the year, up 0.4 percentage point from the previous quarter. This is the highest since the fourth quarter of 2012, when the index stood at 59.9. K-HAI reflects the burden of loan repayment for homebuyers with median income who purchase average-price

South Korean stocks opened nearly flat Monday as investors took a wait-and-see approach on local firms' second-quarter earnings reports set to be released throughout this month.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 1.42 points, or 0.06 percent, to 2,318,29 in the first 15 minutes of trading.Carmakers were among major losers, with Hyundai Motor falling 1.32 percent and its sister Kia Motors backtracking 1.21 percent. Top auto parts maker Hyundai Mobis shed 1.43 percent.In contrast

Offshore investors continued to pour money into South Korean stock markets last month, remaining net buyers of local stocks for a seventh consecutive month, official data showed Monday. Foreign investors boosted their holdings of local stocks by a net 1.75 trillion won ($1.51 billion) in June to 597.7 trillion won, according to the data by the Financial Supervisory Service.  For the first six months of this year, offshore investors bought a net 10.8 trillion won worth of shares issued by So

South Korean tech giants are engaging in a fierce competition with mid-end smartphones to grab budget-conscious customers ahead of the launch of their major flagships slated for later this year, industry watchers said Monday.According to industry sources, LG Electronics Inc. is planning to showcase its mid-end smartphone, the Q6, this week, which can be considered a smaller edition of the flagship G6 released earlier this year. (Yonhap)The Q6 is expected to come with the 18:9 ratio Full Vision d

Japanese bank Nomura Holdings joined several global investment banks on Friday in raising South Korea's economic growth forecast for this year. Kwon Young-sun, a chief economist at Nomura, upgraded South Korea's economic growth rate for this year to 2.7 percent from its previous forecast of 2.4 percent, citing improving exports and construction investment. However, South Korea's economy is likely to show signs of mild growth in the second half of this year.  Kwon noted that South Korea's ec

LG Electronics Inc. said Friday its second-quarter operating profit is estimated at 664.1 billion won ($574.5 million), posting a weaker-than-expected performance apparently on sluggish smartphone sales despite a robust performance of its home appliance business.The operating profit for the April-June period marks a 13.6-percent jump from the 584.6 billion won posted a year earlier, South Korea's No. 2 tech giant said in a regulatory filing. (Yonhap)Sales came to 14.5 trillion won, also up 3.9 p

South Korea's central bank is expected to hold its key rates steady this month as it could move to "normalize" interest in early 2018, Moody's Analytics said Friday.The Bank of Korea is set to hold its rate-review session next Thursday to decide whether to keep or adjust the all-time low rate of 1.25 percent. "The central bank is in no hurry to raise rates with core inflation only gradually creeping higher amid expectations of improving domestic demand," Moody's Analytics sai

Cash-strapped Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. is expected to secure at least 800 billion won ($692 million) in cash through additional debt-for-equity swaps, industry sources said Friday.According to the sources, Daewoo Shipbuilding is planning to start the process of swapping debts for equity with bondholders next month as the country's top court rejected an individual bondholder's suit against the 2.9 trillion-won debt rescheduling program drawn up by the shipyard's creditors. (Yo

South Korean stocks traded lower late Friday morning, as investors opted to cash in recent gains. Samsung, the top cap here, slid after reporting its all-time high earnings for the second quarter.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index shed 5.30 points, or 0.22 percent, to 2,382.51 as of 11:15 a.m.Market kingpin Samsung Electronics fell 0.04 percent, while SK hynix, a major chipmaker, declined 0.44 percent.Hyundai Motor, the No. 1 automaker, dropped 2.57 percent.Top steelmaker POSCO gain

A consortium led by telecom giant KT will monitor and combat infectious diseases in real-time by using big data, the company said Friday.The consortium was selected by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning to establish the big data system for monitoring and surveillance of the infectious diseases, such as the Zika and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome. (Yonhap)The consortium includes credit card firm BC Card, the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Animal and Plan