China's commitment to peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will remain consistent regardless of the leadership change in the United States, Chinese Ambassador Xing Haiming said Wednesday. Xing also said during a forum hosted by his embassy that Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit South Korea first ahead of any other country once the coronavirus pandemic situation stabilizes. "That remains unchanged," he said. Asked about the prospects of Beijing's cooperation wit

Foreign currency deposits at banks in South Korea rose to a record high in October as exporters raised dollar holdings amid the country's improving exports, central bank data showed Wednesday.   Outstanding foreign currency-denominated deposits held by residents amounted to $93.32 billion as of end-October, up $7.87 billion from the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).   The tally rebounded from September, when the FX deposits declined for the first time si

One in three South Koreans picked the outbreak of a new disease as the biggest source of social anxiety this year, a survey showed Wednesday, underscoring people's jitters over the new coronavirus pandemic. The poll by Statistics Korea showed that 32.8 percent of those surveyed said they consider the outbreak of a new disease as the biggest threat to society, sharply up 29.9 percentage points from 2.9 percent tallied two years earlier. Regardless of sex, age, education and income levels, the e

The number of holding companies in South Korea declined this year from a year earlier due largely to a fall in mid-sized holding firms, the country's antitrust regulator said Wednesday. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said a total of 167 holding companies were registered with the country's antitrust regulator as of end-September, down from 173 the previous year. The registered holding companies consist of 157 general holding firms and 10 financial ones. A fall in the number of small an

KT Corp., a South Korean telecom giant, and its affiliate had the most number of pay TV subscribers in the country in the first half of this year, maintaining the top status in terms of market share, ministry data showed Wednesday. The mobile carrier and its satellite TV unit KT Skylife Co. had a combined 31.4 percent share of the market, or 10.7 million subscribers, in the January-June period, followed by LG Uplus Corp. and its pay TV unit LG HelloVision Corp. at a total 25.1 percent, accordin

An appellate court on Wednesday maintained prison terms for two disgraced producers of the popular music channel Mnet for rigging the vote results of a popular audition program. The Seoul High Court sentenced Ahn Joon-young, the producer of the audition program "Produce," to two years in prison and forfeiture of 37 million ($30,000), and chief producer Kim Yong-beom to 20 months in prison, the same punishments ruled in May by the Seoul Central District Court. The two were convicted

A recent surge in coronavirus cases has increased anxiety about whether the national college entrance exam, the biggest academic event of the year, can be held safely in South Korea next month. Education authorities are on high alert ahead of the Dec. 3 event, having postponed the exam, originally slated for Nov. 19, in late March, when the country was hit by the first wave of the pandemic. They will launch a two-week special precautionary period starting Thursday, preparing for the test to be

Over 80 percent of South Korea's 100 trillion won ($90 billion) budget set aside for boosting defense capabilities over the next five years will be spent on buying locally made weapons and hardware, rather than imports, to help boost the local defense industry, Defense Minister Suh Wook said Wednesday. Suh made the remark in a congratulatory message at a defense expo, DX Korea 2020, held in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul, calling the industry a driving force for economic growth and a basis fo

Samsung Engineering Co. said Wednesday it has clinched a 150 billion won ($135) order to build a battery copper foil plant in Hungary. The plant, South Korean copper foil maker Doosan Corporation Europe's second, is set to be completed in Tatabanya Industrial Park in Hungary in 2022 and will have an annual production capacity of 15,000 tons of battery copper foil, a key component of electric vehicle batteries. In April, Doosan Corporation Europe, a wholly owned subsidiary of South Korea's Doos

Two Army officers and an airman tested positive for the new coronavirus, the defense ministry said Wednesday, raising concerns over the fast spread of the virus at barracks. The airman in the central city of Seosan was confirmed to have been infected after coming into contact with colleagues who earlier tested positive, according to the ministry. The total number of patients at this Air Force unit grew to 11. An Army officer stationed in the border town of Paju tested positive after showing sy

A lawmaker proposed a bill Wednesday requiring a quota of female executives on the boards of major listed companies in a bid to help women rise beyond a corporate glass ceiling. The bill submitted by Rep. Yang Kyung-sook of the ruling Democratic Party proposes a revision to the Financial Investment Services and Capital Markets Act in a way that ensures a certain ratio of female members on the boards of stock market-listed companies whose assets surpass 2 trillion won ($1.8 billion). Nine other

Former President Chun Doo-hwan has been included in the list of habitual tax delinquents for the fifth consecutive year, officials in Seoul said Wednesday. The Seoul government disclosed on its website (http://www.seoul.go.kr) the names and identities of 15,032 habitual tax evaders, who had more than 10 million won ($9,030) in delinquent local taxes as of Jan. 1, 2020, for longer than one year. A total of 1,050 individual tax delinquents with 83.2 billion won in arrears and 283 corporate tax d

Dozens of South Korean troops visited a US military training center in California and staged combined training exercises with American service members, officials said Wednesday. Around 50 Army members, including those from a reconnaissance unit, carried out various joint maneuvers with the US troops at the US Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC) for about a month from mid-October, according to the officials. They returned home Tuesday and have been quarantined for the new coronavirus, the

Citizens in the greater Seoul area and southern city of Gwangju will be required to follow stricter health regulations in public places and at gatherings under an enhanced social distancing scheme effective from Thursday, as the country is facing another potential flare-up of the new coronavirus. Social distancing was raised by one notch to Level 1.5 in Seoul and the surrounding Gyeonggi Province, where the average daily cases surpassed 100 in the previous week, the threshold for the second-low

North Korea poses major threats to "vital interests" of the United States as it continues to advance its missile and nuclear capabilities, a Washington-based think tank report showed Wednesday. According to the "2021 Index of US Military Strength," an annual report published by the Heritage Foundation, North Korea was ranked as "high" in terms of threat level, the second highest out of its five-tier threat assessment scale. It came in the same category with Russia,

South Korea's two largest electronics firms -- Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. -- on Wednesday decided to temporarily shut down their research labs after their workers tested positive for the new coronavirus. Samsung said it shuttered a mobile research lab in Suwon, just south of Seoul, after a worker there tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday. The company said it has ordered all employees at the building to work from home, while the floor where the virus-infected employee

WASHINGTON -- US Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun stressed the need for a mixture of "top-down" and "bottom-up" approaches to rid North Korea of its nuclear ambition in a meeting with a group of visiting South Korean lawmakers on Tuesday. The top US negotiator in talks with North Korea also promised efforts to make sure his experience and lessons from dealing with the communist state will be transferred to the next US administration, according to the South Korean law

South Korean shares opened nearly flat Wednesday, as investors remained worried over soaring COVID-19 cases. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 0.16 point, or 0.01 percent, to 2,539.31 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks came to a muted start despite vaccine hopes, as South Korea's new coronavirus cases hovered above 200 for the fourth day in a row Tuesday, with authorities warning that infection cases may further increase due to cluster infections in greater S

신종 코로나바이러스 감염증(코로나19) 백신을 개발하고 있는 화이자와 모더나가 연달아 낭보를 내놓으며 코로나19 백신에 대한 관심이 커지는 가운데, 확인되지 않은 백신 관련 루머도 덩달아 확산하고 있다. 정부가 무선주파수인식기술(RFID·Radio-Frequency IDentification) 칩을 코로나19 백신에 삽입, 피접종자 인체에 칩이 들어가게 함으로써 사람들을 통제하려 한다는 주장이 대표적이다. RFID란 라디오 주파수의 특성을 이용해 반도체 칩에 저장된 정보를 무선으로 읽어내는 기술로, 바코드보다 많은 정보를 담을 수 있다. 교통카드, 건물 출입증, 물류 유통 시스템 등에도 널리 활용돼 주변에서 쉽게 찾아볼 수 있다. 온라인 커뮤니티와 소셜미디어(SNS) 등에는 "백신 맞으면서 RFID를 같이 맞추는 것을 긍정적으로 고려하겠다는 이야기", "하루가 다르게 통제 사회 시스템을 갖춰가는 중"과 같은 내용의 게시물이 최근

Capital spending by large South Korean firms rose more than 10 percent in the first nine months of the year despite lower sales due to the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Wednesday. Combined investments by 362 big businesses in Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 63.2 trillion won ($57.1 billion) in the January-September period, up 10.3 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from corporate tracker CEO Score. The solid increase came as their total sales fell 4.5 percent on-year