Korea

SEOUL: A total of nine automobile shipping companies from four countries, including Korea and Japan, have been fined 43 billion won (US $43 million) for illegal collusion. The Korean Fair Trade Commission (FTC) announced on August 21 that nine operators of automobile shipping services from Korea, Japan, Norway and Chile had engaged in collusion in the bidding for contracts with ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s exports posted a double-digit increase during the Aug. 1-20 period due to demand for semiconductors and oil products, customs data showed Monday. Exports, which account for about half of the economy, reached 25.1 billion US dollars for the first 20 days of this month, according to the Korea Customs Service. It was 11.6 percent up from the ... Read More »

NEW DELHI: The government has come out with a set of procedures to start investigations aimed at imposing safeguard duty against import from South Korea, with which India has a free trade agreement in place. The move comes against the backdrop of surge in gold imports from South Korea. India and South Korea implemented a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s trade surplus remained in the black for the 66th month in a row in July amid brisk outbound shipments, customs data showed Tuesday. The country’s trade surplus came to US$10.3 billion last month, slightly down from a surplus of $10.7 billion tallied a month earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. Asia’s fourth-largest economy ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korean President Moon Jae-in, elected in May following the impeachment of his predecessor Park Geun-hye, wants to raise the corporate income tax rate for large companies to provide more resources for social welfare spending. On the surface, South Korea seems to have ample room to do this, given that its corporate tax rate is low in comparison to ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea Midland Power Co Ltd (KOMIPO) has bought a total of 750,000 tonnes of coal for loading between October and the second-half of 2018 via tenders, a source from the utility said on Tuesday. The utility has bought 250,000 tonnes of Australian coal for October while the rest will be shipped from South Africa, the source said without ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s per capita gross domestic product is expected to edge past Italy’s in 2018, the government predicted Sunday, based on growth forecast data. The prediction, if it is met, will place the country’s per capita GDP at slightly more than $30,000 and just over that of the European country. South Korea was ranked 29th worldwide, with Italy standing ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea posted the biggest-ever services account deficit in the first half of this year as a falling number of Chinese tourists visiting the country led to a surge in the travel account deficit, central bank data showed Thursday. Services account balance, which measures the flow of travel, transport costs and royalties, logged a deficit of 15.74 billion U.S. ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korean exports expanded for a ninth straight month in July on growing overseas demand for computer data storage devices, memory chips and other goods, as the global economy gains strength. Exports in July rose 19.5% from a year earlier to $48.85 billion after the prior month’s revised 13.6% gain, according to preliminary data from the trade ministry and ... Read More »

SEOUL: The South Korean government will unveil its plan to increase taxes for the superrich and biggest businesses next week, government officials said Saturday. On Wednesday, Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon is scheduled to announce a set of tax code revisions, which is regularly done twice a year, they said. The issue of a tax increase has emerged as a hot ... Read More »

SEOUL: Robust demand for South Korea’s memory chips and ships are expected to have boosted exports for a ninth month in a row in July, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday, underscoring strengthening momentum in Asia’s fourth-largest economy. The median forecast of the 10 analysts polled was for exports to soar 17.4 percent from a year earlier, accelerating from 13.6 ... Read More »

SEOUL: North Korea’s economy grew at its fastest pace in 17 years in 2016, South Korea’s central bank said on Friday, despite the isolated country facing international sanctions aimed at curbing its defiant pursuit of nuclear weapons. Gross domestic product (GDP) in North Korea last year rose 3.9 percent from the previous year when the economy contracted due to a ... Read More »

BEIJING: North Korean exports to China fell by 13.2 percent in the first half of 2017, Chinese customs authorities said at a recent news conference. The amount of goods going the other way increased by 29.1 percent, although Chinese customs officials stressed that these goods were not banned by the U.N. sanctions that are intended to force the communist regime ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea imported 1.2 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in June, up 10.5 percent from a year ago, preliminary data from Korea Customs Service showed. That is equivalent to 8.4 million barrels, according to a calculation. The world’s fifth-largest crude buyer imported a total 11.6 million tonnes of crude last month against 11.3 million tonnes imported a ... Read More »

SEOUL: As businesses began a massive sale of U.S. dollars due to the rise in the won-dollar exchange rate last month, foreign currency deposits in South Korea in June reached a record low. According to a report titled “Resident Foreign Exchange Deposit Trend in June 2017” released by the Bank of Korea (BOK) on July 14, the total resident foreign ... Read More »

SEOUL: The prosecution launched an investigation Wednesday into the Korea Customs Service over allegations it granted favors to certain conglomerates in providing duty free shop licenses under the Park Geun-hye administration. The investigation will focus on whether Park or her longtime friend Choi Soon-sil intervened in the custom agency’s selection of companies, marking a second-phase probe into the massive influence-peddling ... Read More »

SEOUL: Amid growing trade protectionism around the world, foreign countries are strengthening restrictions on imports from South Korea. The Korea International Trade Association(KITA) said Monday, the cumulative number of South Korean goods put under import restriction measures overseas or being reviewed to face such measures reached 201 as of the end of last month, surpassing the 200 mark for the ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s nominal corporate tax rate is on par with the average for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, but its effective rate remains at the bottom, a report showed Saturday. According to the report by Kang Byung-goo, a professor at Inha University, South Korea’s maximum rate of corporate tax stood at 24.2 percent in 2017, ... Read More »

BEIJING: China’s trade with North Korea has risen despite Beijing’s promise to enforce U.N. sanctions over the North’s nuclear program, but Chinese purchases of most North Korean exports have fallen. Customs data show total trade in the first five months of this year rose 15 percent from a year earlier, driven by North Korea’s purchases of Chinese oil and consumer ... Read More »

SEOUL: In a bid to protect traders from the so-called perils of bitcoin, lawmakers in South Korea are drawing up a set of bill that will give digital currencies legal grounds in the country. South Korea poised to join Japan in regulating bitcoin leading the charge is Rep. Park Yong-jin, member of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, who plans ... Read More »