SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea should realign its export structure by boosting the portion of the service sector while reducing dependence on the manufacturing segment amid digital transformation and the artificial intelligence era, a central bank report said Friday. The Bank of Korea (BOK) said the country’s manufacturing sector accounted for 27 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 27 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission (PIPC) has imposed a fine of 1.1 billion won on Worldcoin, a cryptocurrency project that collected iris scans from about 30,000 South Korean users without proper legal grounds and transferred the data overseas in violation of privacy laws. The PIPC announced on September 26 [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 25 (Korea Bizwire) – The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) slashed the growth outlook for the South Korean economy to 2.5 percent this year, Seoul’s finance ministry said Wednesday. The latest figure marked a 0.1 percentage point fall from its projection presented in May and is on a par with the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – A single report from global investment bank Morgan Stanley has sent shockwaves through the South Korean stock market, underscoring the outsized influence of foreign financial institutions on the country’s equities. On September 20, shares of SK Hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, closed at 157,100 won after plummeting as [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 19 (Korea Bizwire) – In a sign of growing financial strain on South Korea’s middle and lower-income households, credit card loans, often a last resort for quick cash, have reached unprecedented levels this year. According to data released on September 18 by the Credit Finance Association, the outstanding balance of card loans, including debt [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Korea Bizwire) – As South Korea prepares for the launch of Wegovy, a highly anticipated weight loss medication, next month, questions are arising about its coverage under private health insurance plans. Wegovy, produced by Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk and famously touted by Tesla CEO Elon Musk as his weight management secret, is [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — Excess funds held by South Korean households has fallen for eight quarters in a row amid high inflation and interest rates, data showed Wednesday. The monthly surplus of a local household came to 1.01 million won (US$753.3) per month on average in the second quarter, down 1.7 percent from [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Korea Bizwire) – As South Korea grapples with an unprecedented pace of population aging, coupled with trends towards longer life spans with chronic illnesses and an increase in single-person households, the need for individuals to prepare for their own elder care is becoming increasingly urgent. On September 12, the Korea Life Insurance Association [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean economy continues to show signs of recovery, driven by strong exports and manufacturing output, with consumer prices showing signs of stabilization, the finance ministry said Friday. The Ministry of Economy and Finance made the assessment in the Green Book, its monthly economic report, noting that domestic [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Hanwha Group, a South Korean defense-to-insurance conglomerate, said Thursday it plans to pay 600 billion won (US$447.8 million) for a controlling stake in the Singaporean offshore plant firm Dyna-Mac Holdings. The group’s two defense and shipbuilding affiliates, Hanwha Aerospace Co. and Hanwha Ocean Co., will make a cash tender [...]