South Korea posted a current account surplus for the 22nd straight month in February, but the surplus narrowed from a year earlier as soaring oil prices boosted import bills, central bank data showed Friday. The current account surplus reached $6.42 billion in February, down from $8.06 billion the previous year, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The current account...

SEJONG -- Import prices of grain will likely continue to climb during the second quarter of the year amid deepening inflationary pressure worldwide, a state-funded agency predicted. According to the Korea Rural Economic Institute, the projection index for import prices for edible grain and fodder grain reached 158.5 and 163.1, respectively, in the period of April to June. This is a rise by 10.4...

Kakao Mobility Corp., South Korea's leading taxi-hailing firm, said Thursday that it will invest 50 billion won ($41 million) to support its business partners to spearhead shared growth. The investment is part of a 300 billion-won fund created by its parent firm, internet giant Kakao Corp., to support small business partners over the next five years. "Kakao Mobility aims to support the mobility...

Private companies will take over from state firms in pursuing raw materials such as lithium, cobalt and nickel to better respond to supply shortages stemming from global political unrest, President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition committee said Wednesday. “The supply bottlenecks are getting worse because geopolitical unrest is taking place worldwide and supply chains are held hostage. Demand fo...

SEJONG -- Skepticism is growing over the Korean economy’s growth targets due to a variety of downside risks at home and abroad, though the government had predicted the economy would expand by 3.1 percent this year. The gloomy situation could be seen from the recent announcement of international organizations and rating firms, who started revising down their outlooks on the 2022 gross domestic pr...

The relative poverty rate of South Korean senior citizens has been on the decline, but is still high among member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) amid rapid aging, a report showed Wednesday. The relative poverty rate of South Koreans aged 66 or older came to 40.4 percent in 2020, down from 43.2 percent the previous year and 47.8 percent in 2011, acco...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Wednesday lowered its 2022 growth outlook for the South Korean economy to 3 percent amid the upsurge in COVID-19 cases and the Ukraine crisis. The latest estimate by the Manila-based bank is lower than the 3.1 percent growth forecast made in December last year. The ADB forecast the South Korean economy will grow 2.6 percent next year. Despite the downward rev...

The transition committee working for President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol on Tuesday discussed digitizing government work with outside experts after being briefed on digital efforts under the current Moon Jae-in government. A task force -- launched by the committee to deliver on Yoon’s promise to change the way the government works by embracing digital technology, mainly big data but also artificial in...

On price growth hitting decade-high of 4.1% in March, fiscal chief cites Russia’s Ukraine invasion as key trigger

Shinhan Bank report says income gap at four-year high, young Koreans take average 17 years to pay back mortgage

South Korea's national debt rose to a record high last year as the government boosted a debt sale to fund its expansionary fiscal spending to ride out the COVID-19 pandemic-caused slump, the finance ministry said Tuesday. The sovereign debt, which covers bond sales and financial borrowing by central and provincial governments, amounted to 967.2 trillion won ($796 billion) last year, sharply up 1...

Sales of imported vehicles in South Korea fell 8.7 percent in March as chip shortages continued to affect vehicle production, an industry association said Tuesday. The number of newly registered foreign vehicles fell to 24,912 units last month from 27,297 units a year ago, the Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association (KAIDA) said in a statement. The three bestselling models last mo...

SEJONG -- South Korea will expand tax cuts on fuel consumption as part of efforts to ease inflation pressure that has been building up amid surging energy prices, the country's top economic policymaker said Tuesday. The government will expand fuel tax cuts from the current 20 percent to 30 percent from early May to end-July as the Russia-Ukraine war has sent crude oil and other commodity prices ...

Jet fuel consumption in South Korea tumbled to a 17-year low in 2021 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Jet fuel consumption in Asia's fourth-largest economy came to 21.17 million barrels last year, down 2.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the state-run Korea National Oil Corp. The decrease followed a 44 percent on-year nosedive in 2020, which ...

South Korea's consumer prices grew more than 4 percent for the first time in more than 10 years in March as energy prices jumped amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine, data showed Tuesday. The consumer prices rose 4.1 percent last month from a year earlier, accelerating from a 3.7 percent on-year gain in February, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. Consumer inflation exceeded 4 per...