The amount of toy imports in South Korea rose to a record level in the first four months of this year on robust demand for character robots, government data showed Wednesday. The inbound shipment of kids' toys reached a record $276 million in the January-April period, up 3.1 percent from $267 million the previous year, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism...

South Korea's stock funds returned nearly 17 percent in the first half of the year as the equity market soared on improving corporate earnings and an economic recovery, a fund evaluator said Wednesday. The average return of local stock funds with net assets of 1 billion won or more, excluding exchange traded funds, came to 16.9 percent as of Monday, according to KG Zeroin. In contrast, local bo...

Eland Group, a major South Korean outlet mall operator, is seeking to log over 400 billion won ($351 million) in sales from its local and Chinese e-commerce platforms, industry sources said Wednesday. The company entered the Chinese market in 1996 and had since focused on expanding the offline stores until opening its first e-commerce store on Tmall in 2014. Tmall is China's largest online shopp...

The Composite Consumer Sentiment Index in South Korea hit a new high for the last six years and five months, data showed Tuesday. The CCSI reached 111.1 in June, up 3.1 points from the previous month, according to data from the Bank of Korea. This marked the highest since it recorded 111.4 in January 2011. The index surged for five consecutive months after dropping for three straight months to ...

A state-run think tank on Tuesday revised up its 2017 growth forecast for the South Korean economy by 0.3 percentage point to 2.8 percent on the strength of global trade and eased uncertainties at home and abroad. "The South Korean economy will likely see the upbeat pace of its exports and investment slow down to some extent, but private consumption should make a slight upturn in the second half...

President Moon Jae-in is embarking on his first overseas trip as Korea’s leader, attending a critical two-day Korea-US Summit with President Donald Trump on Thursday and Friday. During the summit, Moon is slated to spearhead delegations that are to highlight the importance of the five-year Korea-US Free Trade Agreement as well as address looming uncertainties regarding the US’ attempts to rene...

Concern is being raised that the problem of debt incurred by self-employed businesses in the country is much more severe than has been depicted by official figures. A newspaper report last week said a recent survey by the local financial authorities revealed the country’s self-employed people held a combined debt of 650 trillion won ($573.1 billion) as of the end of last year, exceeding the Bank...

The government is considering a move to raise the price of diesel fuel with the aim of reducing fine dust emissions, government sources said Sunday. Among plans under consideration by the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, higher taxes could be slapped on diesel gas, which is cheaper than gasoline in Seoul Korea. Diesel has been cited as the main culprit behind the fine dust in the country that h...

South Korean President Moon Jae-in is expected to pitch for the benefits of the two countries' bilateral free trade pact during his upcoming trip to the US, but may face some tough challenges in talks with his counterpart Donald Trump who has been calling for the renegotiation of the landmark deal, industry watchers said Sunday. There have been growing concerns here over a possible renegotiation...

CEOs and business leaders from some of the country’s top conglomerates are heading to the United States alongside President Moon Jae-in for a two-day Korea-US Business Summit with President Donald Trump next week, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced Thursday. In Moon’s first international trip as the new president, he will be joined by a 52-person Korean business delegation, wh...

The number of people unemployed for six months, who are classified as long-term unemployed, reached a 13-year high in May this year, according to Statistics Korea on Thursday. Some 120,000 were long-term unemployed, accounting for 11.96 percent of the jobless population. It marked the highest since 2004. Companies in South Korea usually hire in August or September, when the respective number sl...

The number of people earning a living by renting property has risen sharply in recent years, government data showed Thursday, amid a market boom brought on by policy measures to prop up the housing market. The total number in the rental and leasing businesses surged to 1,452,000 people as of the end of 2015 from 882,000 in 2006 and 1,340,000 in 2014, according to data by the National Tax Service...

South Korean employees were paid an average 3.29 million won ($2,885) per month in 2015, with male workers earning 1.7 times more than their female colleagues, government data showed Thursday. According to the data by Statistics Korea, the median monthly wage of South Korea's employees was 2.41 million won. The statistics agency said the data is based on a survey of 15 million workers hired by ...