Korea

SEOUL: South Korea’s LNG imports increased by 15% year on year in Q1 2018, with March being the first month in 2018 that the country’s oldest coal-fired power plants have been forced offline. Total imports for Q1 2018 exceeded 13 mt, up by 1.66 mt compared with Q1 2017. Imports in March were up by 23% year on year and ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s exports rose 8.3 percent on-year during the first 20 days of April on the back of brisk sales of semiconductors and petrochemicals, customs data showed Monday. The country’s outbound shipments reached US$32.82 billion in the April 1-20 period, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service. The customs office said that daily average exports, which reflect ... Read More »

SEOUL: Customs officials raided the headquarters of Korean Air Lines Co. and the residence of the chairman’s daughter on Saturday to look into allegations that the heiress didn’t pay duties on luxury goods brought into the country. Investigators from the Korea Customs Service stormed into the main office of the country’s biggest airline in western Seoul and the house of ... Read More »

SEOUL: Cryptocurrency miners in South Korea may soon find it more difficult to get foreign-made mining chips imported to the country. According to data published by the Korean Customs Service (KCS) on Wednesday, cryptocurrency mining chips have been added to the current list of items that must meet certain legal requirement for importation, such as safety and sanitation certifications. The new measure ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s leading energy company SK Incheon Petrochem plans to increase imports of light crude oil from sources including Nigeria to replace Iranian condensates, due to rising prices for the Middle Eastern oil. SK Incheon Petrochem, fully owned by SK Innovation, South Korea’s largest refiner, was quoted by Reuters to have said in a statement that it would bring ... Read More »

SEOUL:  However, on April 12, a key negotiating session between GM Korea and the KMWU was canceled when KMWU officials refused to conduct the meeting under CCTV monitoring. Since then, no new talks have been scheduled. Meanwhile, Korea Development Bank chairman, Lee Dong-gull said a due diligence to determine whether it is feasible to provide GM Korea with interim and ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korean imports of Iranian oil fell 39.3 percent in March from a year earlier as demand for Iranian crude slowed, the customs data showed on Sunday. In March, the world’s fifth-largest oil importer imported 1.37 million tons of Iranian crude, equivalent to 324,000 and 612 barrels per day, compared to 2.26 million tonnes a year ago, when import ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korean Government has filed an appeal against a ruling by the World Trade Organization (WTO) on its import restrictions on Japanese seafood after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster. After Japan officially lodged a complaint at the WTO in 2015 to challenge South Korea’s import bans, a WTO dispute panel ruled that South Korea’s measures were justified shortly after the 2011 ... Read More »

SEOUL: The World Trade Organization (WTO) said Friday that South Korea is to suspend tariff concessions on certain goods from the United States due to tariffs imposed by Washington on solar cells and washing machines responsible for around 1.4 billion U.S. dollars in annual trade. “The Republic of Korea notifies the Council for Trade in Goods that it has decided ... Read More »

SEOUL: Since the bilateral Free Trade Agreement came into effect in 2012, South Korea’s deficit in the fruit trade with the United States has been growing year after year. The report from the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KERI) shows South Korea imported US$631 million worth of fruits from the US in 2017, up 13.5 percent from the previous year. The ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea’s deficit in the fruit trade with the United States has been growing every year after the bilateral free trade agreement went into effect in 2012, a report said Wednesday. Statistics provided in the report from the Korea Rural Economic Institute (KERI) showed South Korea imported US$631 million worth of fruits from the U.S. in 2017, up 13.5 ... Read More »

SEOUL: The South Korean Ministry of Strategy and Finance (MOSF) is planning to announce a framework on cryptocurrency taxation. The G20 meeting held last month in Buenos Aires focused on cryptocurrencies, among other things. Speaking at a press conference, Argentina Central Bank chair Frederico Sturzenegger said the member countries have a July 2018 deadline for recommendations on cryptocurrencies. South Korea is reportedly planning to ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea has been looking for ways to tax cryptocurrency gains from a long time. In December last year it was said by the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of the country that they’re looking for ways to levy taxes on local Bitcoin markets. Next month a corporate tax of 22% plus 2.2% local income tax was imposed ... Read More »

SEOUL: The UN security council has blacklisted dozens of ships and shipping companies involved in smuggling oil and coal in and out of North Korea. The security council’s North Korea sanctions committee on Friday acted on a request by the US, took action against 21 shipping companies – including five based in China  15 North Korean ships, 12 non-North Korean ships and ... Read More »

SEOUL: Korea Times states that Bithumb, the country’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, and Pay, a mobile payment service provider, have inked a partnership agreement to enable transactions at 6,000 business outlets across the country by the end of the first half of this year. Bithumb also has a partnership with Yeogi Eottae, South Korea’s largest hotel booking platform. Per that agreement, ... Read More »

SEOUL:  South Korea’s consumer sentiment index in March slipped for a fourth consecutive month to its lowest in five months, a central bank survey showed on Tuesday, as households’ perception of current economic conditions worsened. The Bank of Korea’s composite consumer sentiment index (CCSI) declined to 108.1 for March from 108.2 in February. The index was the weakest since October’s ... Read More »

SEOUL:  South Korea earned an exemption from the U.S. heavy tariffs on steel imports in a deal to revise their six-year-old free trade agreement (FTA), Seoul’s trade minister said Monday. Trade Minister Kim Hyun-chong told a press briefing that the U.S. side agreed to exempt South Korea from imposing new tariffs on steel imports, saying it removed uncertainty of local ... Read More »

SEOUL: Exports of semiconductors produced by Korean firms reached a record high last year on soaring prices and firm demand, customs data showed on Friday. The outbound shipment of chips reached $99.71 billion last year, sharply up 60.2 percent from the $62.23 billion tallied a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Korea Customs Service. The 2017 tally ... Read More »

SEOUL: South Korea financial regulators are reportedly launching a probe into domestic banks over their implementation of anti-money laundering procedures for cryptocurrency exchanges. According to a report from Yonhap, the Financial Intelligence Unit and Financial Services Commission (FSC) will launch the inspection starting next month at banks offering corporate accounts to cryptocurrency exchanges. The investigation, according to the report, follows a previous mandate from ... Read More »

SEOUL: Korea’s domestic coffee market surpassed 10 trillion won in 2017 for the first time ever as demand for the brew continues to rise, market data showed. According to the Korea Customs Service (KCS), the country’s coffee market stood at 11.7 trillion won (US$10.8 billion), up more than threefold from around the middle 3 trillion won level a decade earlier. ... Read More »