The number of foreign students in Korea has hit a record high this year, data from the Justice Ministry showed Tuesday. As of February, the number of foreign students reached 92,076, up 8 percent on-year, the ministry said. The figure has gradually increased since 2008 but started to decline from 2012. The number dropped to 85,230 last year, the lowest figure since 2011, officials said. It pic...

Incheon International Airport has continued striking growth since it opened 14 years ago, data showed Monday. The airport, which launched service on March 29, 2001, has grown 6.7 percent on average in terms of the number of passengers; 3.4 percent in cargo; and 7.2 percent in flights every year, according to data released by the airport authority. The number of transfer passengers also increase...

Arab League member states (11 countries ― Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Turkey, UAE) have agreed in principle to form a joint inter-Arab military peacekeeping force. While details of how such a force would actually operate remain thin, the agreement is a telling sign of a new determination among Saudi Arabia, Egypt and their allies to intervene agg...

Korea’s 30 largest conglomerates acquired 203 companies at a total price surpassing 29 trillion won ($26.3 billion) in the past five years, according to data compiled on mergers and acquisitions released Wednesday. CJ Group led the pack in the number of deals with 36 acquisitions while Hyundai Motor Group topped spending on M&As, tallying nearly 5.2 trillion won, the business performance analysi...

Lotte Department Store soared past the other big five local department stores in sales reported on Monday, while Galleria Department Store gave up its fourth-place slot to AK Plaza. Lotte reported sales of 14.2 trillion won ($12.8 billion) last year, followed by Hyundai Department Store with 6.98 trillion won ($6.3 billion) and Shinsegae Department Store with 6.3 trillion won ($5.7 billion). AK...

Koreans consumed the most noodles per person in 2014, according to a report released by Bloomberg Intelligence and market research firm Euromonitor on Sunday. The report showed that the average Korean consumed 9.73 kilograms of noodles in 2014, up 0.8 percent from 2013. Japan was a close second with 9.63 kg, followed by Indonesia (5.8 kg), China (5.0 kg) and Vietnam (4.7 kg). The top 10 countri...

China is now the world’s third-largest exporter of arms, data compiled by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute showed Tuesday. According to the report, the U.S. remained the world’s largest arms exporter during the 2010 to 2014 period, accounting for 31 percent of global exports of conventional weapons. The U.S. was followed by Russia with a 27 percent share of global arms expor...

South Korea’s economic growth rate has fallen behind the G20 average for the fourth straight year, according to data released Sunday. Korea’s gross domestic product grew by 3.3 percent in 2014, lower than the G20 average of 3.4 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Korea’s economic growth surpassed the G20 average from 1999 to 2010 ― even during the gl...

South Korea’s annual minimum wage levels in 2013 ranked 14th out of 25 OECD countries with $12,038, placing in the middle range, according to data released Wednesday. Australia had the highest minimum wage with $30,839. France (No. 7, $22,788), U.K. (No. 9, $20,226), Japan (No. 10, $16,043), and the U.S. (No. 11, $15,080) were ahead of Korea, and Spain (No. 15, $11,995), Turkey (No. 18, $60,304)...