The Korea Herald

Tax revenues hit record high last year

Aug 1, 2011

Tax revenues hit a record high last year as income and corporate taxes increased amid improving economic conditions, government data showed Monday. The National Tax Service said that it collected a total of 166.15 trillion won ($157.9 billion) last year, compared with 154.33 trillion won tallied a year earlier. The amount was also 3.6 percent or 6 trillion won higher than the government’s initi...
Consumer prices jump 4.7% in July amid inflation concerns

Aug 1, 2011

South Korea’s consumer prices jumped 4.7 percent in July from a year earlier, staying above the government’s target inflation rate of 4 percent for the seventh month in a row amid growing worries over its impact on the overall economy. The year-on-year figure in July marked a bigger jump than the 4.4 percent increase the previous month, according to a report by Statistics Korea on Monday. The co...
Daewoo Securities launches English stock trade program

Aug 1, 2011

Daewoo Securities said on Monday it has launched an English-language online home trading system targeting foreign investors interested in the Korean stock market. The new trading software named “Qway ENG” allows foreign investors to handle trades of Korean stocks, KOSPI200 futures and options, aided by simple and elegant interfaces. “The English-language trading platform is developed on the bas...
IBK seeks to boost assets by 64 percent by 2015

Aug 1, 2011

In the long-term, the bank said it would solidify its market position as a comprehensive financial services provider. The state-run Industrial Bank of Korea said Monday it aims to boost its assets to 300 trillion won ($285 billion) and secure as many as 1 million corporate clients by 2015. IBK said the target assets of 300 trillion won are up 64 percent from 183 trillion won as of the end of Ma...
BOK sees continued inflationary pressure

Aug 1, 2011

South Korea’s inflationary pressure is unlikely to lose steam during the remainder of the year, the top central banker said Monday, pointing to the country’s uphill battle to curb inflation. “The annual growth rate of consumer prices will slow starting in September due mainly to high price levels a year earlier. But that doesn’t mean inflation pressure will lose ground,” Bank of Korea Gov. Kim C...
Financial industry’s growth hits 6-year low

Aug 1, 2011

Growth of the South Korean financial industry hit a six-year low in the first half due mainly to the struggling savings bank sector and insurers’ poor track records, data showed Monday. The local financial industry expanded 1.6 percent on-year in the January-June period, the slowest gain since a 0.2 percent on-year contraction registered in the second half of 2004, according to data by the Bank ...
Big companies join power-saving drive

IndustryAug 1, 2011

Corporations seek consulting services to conserve energy, cut costs These days, SK Group’s headquarters in downtown Seoul starts making ice at 11 p.m. The ice produced overnight cools the building the next day. The “thermal energy storage” system helps the group reduce its peak electricity costs for air-conditioning by transferring the load to off-peak hours. Launched in 2009, its “peak electr...
Radiation-free food bolsters Korea’s exports to Japan

IndustryAug 1, 2011

South Korean food exports to Japan are climbing at the fastest pace on record after radioactive contamination and supply disruptions prompted consumers to switch to overseas producers. Sales of watermelons, tuna and noodles led a 38 percent jump in South Korea’s shipments of food to its Asian neighbor to $604 million in the second quarter from a year earlier, according to the Korea International...
Gas engines at center of fuel efficiency drive

IndustryAug 1, 2011
Auto industry could lead U.S. recovery

IndustryAug 1, 2011
China manufacturing exceeds estimates

IndustryAug 1, 2011

A Chinese manufacturing index was higher than economists estimated in July, signaling the world’s second-biggest economy is withstanding higher interest rates and tightened credit. The Purchasing Managers’ Index was at 50.7 for July compared with 50.9 in June, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said in a statement Monday. That was more than every forecast in a Bloomberg News survey...
HSBC to sell 195 branches for $1b

IndustryAug 1, 2011
Bangkok property boom on the rise

IndustryAug 1, 2011

A 77-storey skyscraper is set to become the latest, and tallest, addition to Bangkok’s ever-changing skyline, already transformed by a construction boom that has raised fears of a property bubble. Variously described on Internet forums as looking “like it has been eaten by giant termites” and reflecting “the chaos of Bangkok”, the MahaNakorn ― Great Metropolis ― will tower over the Thai capital ...
A look at Asia in U.S. culture

BooksAug 1, 2011

Although the comics publisher DC Comics is now co-headed by Jim Lee, an Asian-American, for many decades American comics regularly featured racist depictions of Asians as inscrutable masterminds and devious coolies, among other stereotypes. A new exhibition at New York University (NYU), titled “Marvels and Monsters: Unmasking Asian Images in US Comics, 1942-1986,” spotlights the evolution of Ame...
‘White Taj Mahal’ of Thailand lures tourists

TravelAug 1, 2011

What a nightmare! Whenever you see photographs of Thailand’s White Temple, which lies on the fringes of that tri-nation junction, the Golden Triangle, it looks luminously beautiful like the Taj Mahal. Now, however, the skies above the White Temple or Wat Rong Khun are dowdy and cloudy, and the landmark might better be described as “the grey temple”. Indeed, the washout weather raises the spectr...