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  • Economy

    Consumer sentiment rises for 2nd month in June on strong exports, stock rally

    Consumer sentiment rose for the second consecutive month in June on strong exports and the stock market rally, the central bank said Tuesday. The composite consumer sentiment index (CCSI) stood at 106.6 this month, up 0.5 points from May, according to a survey by the Bank of Korea (BOK). It followed a 6.9-point gain in May, the sharpest on-month rise in a year, rebounding from a two-month losing streak in March and April. The index also stayed over the 100-point mark for the second straight month. A reading above 100 indicates that optimists outnumber pessimists, while a figure below 100 suggests the opposite. The subindex for people's assessment of current economic conditions came in at 86 in June, up 3 points from a month earlier. The index for people's outlook for future economic conditions fell 1 point to 92 over the same period. "Despite slowing economic conditions stemming from rising inflation, solid exports and the stock market rally helped consumer sentiment rise for the second consecutive month," the BOK said. South Korea's exports jumped 60.4 percent from a year earlier in the fir

    1 MIN READBy Yonhap
    Consumer sentiment rises for 2nd month in June on strong exports, stock rally
  • Economy

    Mirae Asset likely to face fines, disciplinary action over SpaceX allocation fallout: experts

    3 MIN READBy Park Han-sol
    Mirae Asset likely to face fines, disciplinary action over SpaceX allocation fallout: experts
  • Others

    More than 40% of self-employed favor minimum wage freeze

    2 MIN READBy Jun Ji-hye
    More than 40% of self-employed favor minimum wage freeze
  • Economy

    Bourse operator issues circuit breaker for KOSPI on sharp fall

    1 MIN READBy Yonhap
    Bourse operator issues circuit breaker for KOSPI on sharp fall
  • Economy

    Corporate sales, profit growth accelerate in Q1: BOK

    1 MIN READBy Yonhap
    Corporate sales, profit growth accelerate in Q1: BOK
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CEO & Publisher: Oh Young-jinDigital News Email: webmaster@koreatimes.co.krTel: 02-724-2114Online newspaper registration No: 서울,아52844Date of registration: 2020.02.05Masthead: The Korea TimesCopyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.

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Economy

Value of household chores up 36% in 2019 from 5 years earlier

gettyimagesbankThe value of household chores grew nearly 36 percent in 2019 from five years earlier, with men's participation in such work rising amid an increase in one-person households and double income families, data showed Monday.The value of household work, such as child care, meal preparations and cleaning, came to 490.9 trillion won ($433 billion) in 2019, compared with 361.5 trillion won in 2014, according to the data from Statistics Korea.The 2019 figure was equivalent to 25.5 percent of the country's nominal gross domestic product. This compared with the 23.1 percent portion seen in 2014.Unpaid chores at home, calculated as the so-called household satellite account, assess the value of services and activities at home by family members without transactions with markets.Maintaining a home, ranging from preparations for meals to cleaning, accounted for 66.6 percent of the unpaid work. Of them, the value of taking care of pets and plants reached 14.5 trillion won, sharply up 111.2 percent from 2014.The portion of looking after family members reached 22.1 percent, with the valu

Jun 21, 2021
Value of household chores up 36% in 2019 from 5 years earlier
Economy

Exports up 29.5% in first 20 days of June

gettyimagesbankSouth Korea's exports rose 29.5 percent on-year in the first 20 days of June on the back of robust demand for chips, autos and petroleum products, customs data showed Monday.The country's outbound shipments stood at $32.4 billion in the June 1-20 period, compared with $25 billion a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service.Imports increased 29.1 percent on-year to $32.1 billion, resulting in a trade surplus of $291 million during the cited period, the data showed.By sector, outbound shipments of memory chips, a key export item, rose 28.5 percent on-year, and those of autos jumped 62.2 percent despite global supply shortages of automotive chips.Semiconductors accounted for about 20 percent of exports by South Korea, home to Samsung Electronics, the world's largest memory chipmaker, and its smaller rival SK hynix Inc. Autos made up around 7 percent of total exports.Exports of petroleum products rose 58.6 percent on-year as oil prices picked up amid a global economic recovery. But shipments of ships fell 27.7 percent from a year earlier.By country

Jun 21, 2021
Exports up 29.5% in first 20 days of June
Economy

Young generation weighed down by heavy loans

gettyimagesbankBy Anna J. ParkPeople in their 20s and 30s are suffering from heavier debt, as seen by the rapid increase in their percentage of the country's total debt; they account for nearly 60 percent of new loans.According to a recent report from the Korea Institute of Finance, this age group made up less than half, or 49.5 percent, of new loans in 2017. However, their share has been steadily rising, reaching 58.4 percent as of the end of the third quarter of 2020. In terms of the total amount of new loans, their share increased to 55.3 percent from 42.4 percent three years ago. The report explained that the increased debt in the age group is mostly attributed to mortgages, which accounted for 64 percent of the 409 trillion won ($461 billion) total, as of the third quarter of 2020.The paper suggested that young people's reliance on leveraged investments was another key part of the increased debt. In addition to mortgages, the younger generation was found to be in debt in other areas, including non-bank credit loans. The total loans given to frequent borrowers ― those obtaining m

Jun 20, 2021By Anna J. Park
Young generation weighed down by heavy loans
Economy

Gov't to fire heads of worst-performing public institutions

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki speaks during the public institution management committee meeting at the Government Complex Seoul, Friday. YonhapBy Park Jae-hyukThe government will consider firing the heads of four state-run institutions that received poor evaluations for the second-straight year in an annual management assessment or who scored poorly in 2020, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, Sunday.The four institutions are the Korea Postal Logistics Agency, the Korea Childcare Promotion Institute, the Korea Construction Equipment Safety Institute and the Korea Health Promotion Institute.This is the first time in six years that the government has proposed the dismissal of public institution chiefs based on the results of the annual management evaluation.The heads of the Korea Racing Authority, the Human Resources Development Service of Korea, the Korea Elevator Safety Agency and Korea Power Exchange were on the list of public institution chiefs to be sacked. But they could avoid dismissal because their terms have expired.The government also se

Jun 20, 2021By Park Jae-hyuk
Gov't to fire heads of worst-performing public institutions
Economy

INTERVIEW 'Elon Musk's tweets have limited impact on AI's stock picks'

Qraft Technologies CEO Kim Hyung-sik poses at the New York Stock Exchange during a ceremony to celebrate the listing of the company's artificial intelligence-powered exchange-traded funds in this July 2019 file photo. Courtesy of Qraft Technologies Qraft's robot-run ETFs hit jackpot with Tesla, DocuSign, BiogenBy Park Jae-hyukTesla founder and CEO Elon Musk's bizarre tweets have long been regarded as major risk factors among the electric vehicle manufacturer's shareholders worldwide, prompting some investors to sue him and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to issue warnings.While most investors have felt it difficult to predict Tesla's stock price due to the weird behavior of its CEO, a Korean startup has drawn attention from Wall Street recently for its artificial intelligence (AI) powered exchange-traded fund (ETF), which sold all of its Tesla stock holdings at peak price and bought them again before the price bounced back.The fund is the Qraft AI-Enhanc

Jun 19, 2021By Park Jae-hyuk
[INTERVIEW] 'Elon Musk's tweets have limited impact on AI's stock picks'
Economy

Ruling party to push for property tax cuts on high-end homeowners amid surging house prices

Lawmakers of the ruling Democratic Party discuss whether to reduce real estate-related taxes on high-end homeowners at the National Assembly in Seoul, Friday. / YonhapThe ruling Democratic Party (DP) on Friday adopted a set of policies aimed at reducing real estate-related taxes on high-end homeowners amid spiking house prices.During a plenary party meeting earlier in the day, the DP won its lawmakers' endorsement through online voting for its plan to push for the tax cuts, according to party officials. The DP has been under pressure to address growing public discontent over the overheated real estate market after runaway house prices drove up tax burdens on home owners while raising costs for home lenders. The housing market issue has been widely blamed for the DP's crushing defeats in the Seoul and Busan mayoral elections in April.Under the new policies, the lowest limit for levying the Gross Real Estate Tax, a special tax imposed on owners of multiple or high-end houses, will be raised to some 1.1 billion won ($973,020) from current 900 million won. The tax cut will benefit owner

Jun 18, 2021
Ruling party to push for property tax cuts on high-end homeowners amid surging house prices
Economy

NH Securities under fire for disregarding anti-coal pledge

NH Investment & Securities CEO Chung Young-chae. Korea Times fileBy Lee Kyung-min A coalition of environmental advocacy groups is blasting NH Investment & Securities for refusing to withdraw from a financing plan to build Samcheok Blue Power, a coal-powered plant whose construction has been suspended for eight months due to a failure to meet related requirements following an environmental impact assessment.This according to the environmentalists is a “flagrant disregard” of the anti-coal initiative pledged by the securities firm's holding company, NH Financial Group, in February.The coalition, Korea Beyond Coal, held a press conference in front of NH Investment & Securities' headquarters in Yeouido, Wednesday, criticizing the firm's plan to issue corporate bonds to finance up to 800 billion won ($706 million) in construction costs.The plant in Gangwon Province is Korea's last coal-powered plant in the making, a joint project being pursued by POSCO Energy, POSCO E&C and Doosan Heavy Industries.Construction began in 2018, but was suspended last October due t

Jun 18, 2021By Lee Kyung-min
NH Securities under fire for disregarding anti-coal pledge
Economy

Won to regain ground against dollar until tapering steps are taken: economists

A foreign exchange dealer at Hana Bank works while listening to news on the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee's rate decision, at the lender's headquarters in Seoul, Thursday. YonhapBy Lee Min-hyungThe local currency is expected to strengthen against the U.S. dollar by the end of 2021 despite the recent surge in the valuation of the greenback, as the Federal Reserve is unlikely to take specific tapering steps until that time, economists here said Friday.The forecast came after the won-dollar exchange rate soared to a new high this month of 1,130 won per dollar, Thursday. The appreciation of the dollar reflected the Fed's hawkish attitude toward a sooner-than-expected tightening of its monetary policy.But market watchers said the surge will last only until the Fed takes specific and concrete steps to taper its quantitative easing stance.“The dollar turned bullish on Thursday soon after the Fed's rather hawkish announcement, but it will not keep gaining ground against the won throughout the year, and the exchange market will soon stabilize on the recent extension of the Korea-U.

Jun 18, 2021By Lee Min-hyung
Won to regain ground against dollar until tapering steps are taken: economists
Economy

FSC seeks to retain finance employees, support industry

Financial Services Commission Chairman Eun Sung-soo / Korea Times fileBy Lee Kyung-min The Financial Services Commission (FSC) is rushing to come up with measures to retain jobs in the sector as the industry increasingly slashes in-person services amid digitization, coupled with the emergence of IT firms expanding into the territory requiring highly trained professionals with smart technology expertise.The FSC and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups submitted a proposal on ways to create jobs in the financial industry to a presidential committee Friday.The measure comes amid a steady decline in the number of jobs in the industry. Data from Statistics Korea showed the number of financial employees fell to 778,000 last year, after reaching a peak of 878,000 in 2013. They accounted for 2.9 percent of all jobs in 2020, down from 3.5 percent in that year.About 13,000 jobs in the banking sector disappeared over the same period, while 8,000 were slashed in the credit card, car-financing and leasing sectors.By contrast, internet-only banks have created 1,300 jobs since 2016.Under the measure,

Jun 18, 2021By Lee Kyung-min
FSC seeks to retain finance employees, support industry
Economy

Desperate Koreans bidding for 'lotto' apartments to move up property ladder

Apartment buildings in Seoul / YonhapKim Hyun-seop buys a lottery ticket once in a while, hoping to get on the fast track to his dream: buying a decent home in Seoul. The 40-year-old office worker commutes from an apartment in Ilsan in northern Gyeonggi Province to the Gangnam district in southern Seoul, which takes about 1 1/2 hours by intercity bus. "I want to move from my apartment, where I live on 'jeonse,' to reduce my commute, but I can't find an affordable place in Seoul," the father of two children told Yonhap News. "I feel like apartment prices in Seoul have gone beyond my reach in recent years."Jeonse is a home rental system unique to South Korea in which tenants pay a large sum of money as a deposit instead of paying monthly fees. Kim is one of many Koreans who buy lottery tickets in the hopes of home ownership, a symbol of middle-class financial security, as the runaway property prices have made it hard for an ordinary household to buy a place in the capital city with only their savings. The government has tightened lending rules to rein in the soaring real estate prices

Jun 18, 2021
Desperate Koreans bidding for 'lotto' apartments to move up property ladder
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