Korea Times AI content 1 team Reporter
Yoon Ja-young is in charge of articles translated by a generative AI system and edited by The Korea Times. She is interested in improving the newspaper through AI.
An employee passes by a market index monitor in the dealing room of Hana Bank headquarters in Myeongdong, downtown Seoul, Wednesday. The main benchmark Kospi closed at 2,342.81 points, falling by 2.74 percent from the previous day, while the tech-heavy Kosdaq tumbled 4.03 percent to finish at 746.96 points. Korean won ended at 1,297.30 won against the U.S. dollar, down 3.7 won from the previous day and the lowest value in 13 years. Yonhap
gettyimagesbankBy Yoon Ja-youngAmid steeply rising consumer prices, the economic misery index, which estimates the economic hardship of households, has climbed to its highest level in 21 years. Economists say that the government should focus on curbing food prices as much as it can as low-income households will suffer the most. According to data released by Rep. Kim Hoi-jae of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea, Monday, the economic misery index, which adds inflation to the unemployment rate, stood at 8.4 in May, the highest May figure in 21 years.The index was created by economist Arthur Okun to gauge how much economic distress average households are in. The high May index comes as consumer prices rose 5.4 percent, which is the steepest rise in 13 years and nine months, while the unemployment rate was at 3 percent. Joo Won, deputy director of the Economic Research Department at the Hyundai Research Institute, said low-income groups will not feel that job market conditions have improved either. “Though the unemployment rate has fallen, that only means that the number
National Tax Service (NTS) Commissioner Kim Chang-ki makes a speech at his appointment ceremony held at NTS headquarters in Sejong City, Tuesday. Kim vowed to offer trustable services, based on communication with taxpayers. He also promised to be prudent in tackling tax evasion. Courtesy of NTS
gettyimagesbankBy Yoon Ja-youngMajor advanced economies succeeded in decreasing government debt ratios last year, but Korea is seeing the ratio surge despite a huge increase in tax revenues. According to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) data, all of the G7 countries ― the U.S., the U.K., France, Germany, Japan, Canada and Italy ― saw a decline in the ratio of government debt to gross domestic product (GDP) last year.Italy saw the general government debt-to-GDP ratio reach 175 percent last year, down 10.5 percentage points from 2020.Canada's ratio contracted by 9.6 percentage points during the same period, and France by 7.9 percentage points. The U.S. also saw its ratio dip by 6.5 percentage points and the U.K. by 6 percentage points. Japan, which has been suffering from snowballing government debt, saw the debt edge down 0.4 percentage point.The government debt-to-GDP ratio of Korea, meanwhile, stood at 47.9 percent last year, up 2.5 percentage points from 2020. While the ratio itself is still far lower than those of other developed economies, the data is
Woori Financial Group Chairman Son Tae-seung, sixth from right, and Woori Bank CEO Lee Won-duk, third from right, pose with other group executives and residents of Gangneung, Gangwon Province, after planting pine trees in the wildfire stricken area of the city on April 19. In addition to planting trees to commemorate Earth Day on April 22, the group also donated 100 million won to support volunteer firefighters and residents who suffered damage from the wildfire. Courtesy of Woori Financial Group
KOMSCO CEO Bahn Jahng-Shic, fourth from left, poses with his Uzbekistani counterpart, Djumayev Bakhtiyor Djalilovich, fifth from left, after a meeting in Uzbekistan in early April. Courtesy of KOMSCOBy Yoon Ja-youngThe state-run Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) will expand the supply of intaglio ink to Uzbekistan at the request of the Central Asian country. According to KOMSCO, Tuesday, its CEO, Bahn Jahng-Shick, met his Uzbekistani counterpart, Djumayev Bakhtiyor Djalilovich, early in April to discuss diverse forms of technology cooperation including exports of intaglio ink.Uzbekistan, which is in the course of changing the design of its banknotes, after issuing two new types of banknotes last year, had earlier chosen KOMSCO as its supplier of intaglio ink. The company is scheduled to supply 55 tons of ink to Uzbekistan this year, and the amount is expected to increase, as Uzbekistan will be in charge of manufacturing the banknotes of other countries as well.According to KOMSCO, Uzbekistan also requested that it share its technology and know-ho
The Financial Supervisory Service building headquarters in Yeouido, Seoul. Yonhap By Yoon Ja-young Kim Yong-beom / Yonhap Following a report that President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol has almost made a decision on the nominees to lead the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Financial Services Commission (FSC), all eyes are now on who will be chosen as the head of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).According to aides from the transition team, Rep. Choo Kyung-ho of the main opposition People Power Party (PPP) is almost certain to be named as the deputy prime minister for the economy,?while former Vice Minister of Economy and Finance Choi Sang-mok is expected to become the chairman of the FSC.The FSS Governor is a vice minister-level position and is in charge of overseeing financial services firms across the entire financial sector. Among those mention
KOMSCO CEO Bahn Jahng-Shick, left, shakes hands with Kyrgyzstan's Minister of Digital Development Talantbek Imanov, after signing an MOU in Kyrgyzstan. Courtesy of KOMSCO By Yoon Ja-youngThe state-run Korea Minting, Security Printing & ID Card Operating Corp. (KOMSCO) has signed an MOU with the Kyrgyzstan government to cooperate in the latter's e-government project, which will pave the way for the export of KOMSCO's technologies in digital identification cards and authentication.According to KOMSCO, Wednesday, its CEO Bahn Jahng-Shick signed an MOU with Kyrgyzstan's Minister of Digital Development Talantbek Imanov, and suggested joint projects, including the issuance of mobile identification cards and the digitization of tax payment stamps. KOMSCO, which offers advanced technology in mobile identification cards, has been supplying the Kyrgyzstan government with chip-embedded resident cards since 2017, through an official development assistance (ODA) program. Followi
The Bank of Korea / YonhapBy Yoon Ja-youngThe Bank of Korea (BOK) was once known as “god's workplace,” attracting some of Korea's smartest young people with high salaries and job security. However, the BOK's younger employees seem to be increasingly deserting their once-coveted jobs, as the central bank is failing to meet their expectations, while working conditions, compensation and company culture are all improving in the private sector.According to data on the central bank submitted to Rep. Kim Soo-heung of the ruling Democratic Party of Korea, 311 employees quit their jobs at the BOK before reaching the legal retirement age between 2012 and 2021. The current legal retirement age is 60.This means that around 30 BOK employees are quitting their jobs each year ― or 1 percent of all employees ― but the figure has been rising rapidly. According to media report, seven employees quit the BOK in January, followed by six in February this year. Also notable is the fact that young people are quitting. Among the 311 who quit during the past decade, 135 were in their 20s or 30s. &
Hyundai Card Vice Chairman and CEO Chung Tae-young / Courtesy of Hyundai CardBy Yoon Ja-youngHyundai Card Vice Chairman and CEO Chung Tae-young lost in a lawsuit filed by his siblings, which was triggered over his refusal to fully disclose the names of guests at the funerals of their parents. Chung Kyung-jin, their father who founded the country's oldest cram school, Jongro Academy, in 1965, passed away in November 2020. Their mother passed away in February 2019. According to media reports, Seoul Western District Court ruled on April 1 in favor of Chung's two siblings, in a lawsuit in which the two demanded that Chung hand over the guest books from their deceased parents' funerals. After the funeral, Chung's two siblings demanded he show them the funeral guest books, saying that they should thank the guests who came to pay their respects. However, Chung only handed over a list of guests he determined were relevant to his siblings. The siblings asked him twice ― in December 2020 and January 2021 ― to see copies of the funeral guest books, but Chung refused. The siblings then filed a l