The pace of growth in South Korean exports is expected to slow down in the fourth quarter due to fewer working days and high raw materials costs, a local trade agency said Thursday. The Korea International Trade Association said its export business survey index of 801 exporting companies stood at 100.3 for the October-December period, down from 116.6 for the current quarter. It marks the third ...

Hyundai Motor Co., Daimler Truck and BMW issued a recall for 5,690 vehicles sold in South Korea because of faulty parts, the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Transport said Thursday. South Korea's Hyundai Motor is recalling 3,408 Ioniqs manufactured from October to April due to manufacturing defects within the electronic power control unit. The problem allows coolants to come in contact...

Institutional investors have tended to become net sellers of South Korean stocks ahead of the annual Chuseok holiday over the past five years with foreigners turning net buyers, data showed Thursday. According to the data from the Korea Exchange, institutions were net sellers of local stocks before the Chuseok holiday from 2012-16 except for 2015. Their net selling amounted to 829 billion won (...

South Korea's consumer prices continued their sharp growth in September due to high-flying food prices, government data showed Thursday. The country's consumer price index advanced 2.1 percent this month from a year earlier, decelerating from a more than five-year high of 2.6 percent tallied in the previous month, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. The index has stayed over the...

The British-American spy comedy "Kingsman: The Golden Circle" had the biggest opening day for an R-rated film in South Korea, data showed Thursday. According to the real-time box-office tally from the Korean Film Council, the Fox movie sold 481,891 tickets on 1,686 screens across the country, taking the box-office crown on its first day. It surpassed the first-day record of 475,482 set by the S...

South Korean banks sharply scaled up their investment in tech startups in the first half of the year with their lending to the sector climbing solidly, the financial regulator said Thursday. Domestic lenders' investment in low-credit startups with a high level of technology stood at some 1.2 trillion won ($1.05 billion) in the January-June period, up 48.9 percent from the second half of last yea...

K-pop entertainment agency C9 said Thursday it will take legal action over vicious and sexual online comments made towards underage pop star Bae Jin-young, a member of popular idol group Wanna One. "We've confirmed that malicious rumors, comments attacking his personal character and posts amounting to sexual harassment were made in several online communities towards Bae Jin-young," C9 said in a ...

A 1.5-track dialogue between incumbent North Korean and former US government officials is reportedly to take place next month amid escalating military tension between their countries, a US broadcaster reported Thursday. High-ranking officials from the North's foreign ministry, former US state department officials and scholars are said to be meeting in Europe in mid-October, Radio Free Asia said....

WASHINGTON -- A coroner said Wednesday her office could not determine the exact cause of the death of Otto Warmbier, an American college student who was detained in North Korea for more than a year. Lakshmi Sammarco, a coroner in Cincinnati, Ohio, told reporters the University of Virginia student had brain damage caused by oxygen deprivation, but it's unclear what led to that, according to multi...

South Korean stocks opened lower Thursday, despite Wall Street gains, amid growing tensions between North Korea and the United States. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index fell 2.83 points, or 0.12 percent, to 2,369.74 in the first 25 minutes of trading. The main index continued to fall for the eighth consecutive session on foreign and institutional selling. Foreigners dumped more th...

Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday its QLED TVs won positive reviews from US industry trackers as it pushes to promote the cutting edge technology. Samsung Electronics said US-based DisplayMate and Forbes praised its QLED TVs for delivering satisfactory all-round performance. The QLED TVs make use of so-called quantum-dot technology, which are semiconductor nanocrystals that Samsung says imp...

President Moon Jae-in's approval rating rose this week, ending four consecutive weeks of decline, a poll showed Thursday. In a survey conducted by Realmeter, 68.6 percent of 1,522 respondents said they approved of the president's management of state affairs, up 3.31 percentage points from a week earlier. The weekly poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday. It had a margin of error of 2.5 per...

Use of corporate cards at luxury bars and restaurants fell substantially in the first six months this year from a year earlier, government data showed Thursday, as the anti-graft law that took effect last September bans businesses from treating government officials, teachers and journalists to expensive meals and drinks. The amount spent dropped 44.8 billion won ($39.2 million), or 8.8 percent, ...

The government will buy 720,000 tons of rice harvested this year to stabilize domestic market prices amid chronic oversupply of the staple grain, the agriculture ministry said Thursday. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said it will buy 350,000 tons of rice for its reserve and 370,000 tons to help maintain market prices at a certain level. The government increased the amount o...

South Korea's Defense Minister Song Young-moo on Thursday ordered a special investigation into the recent death of an Army soldier hit by presumably a stray bullet near a local firing range. The 22-year-old man with the rank of private first class was hit by a bullet in his head while walking back to his base in Cheorwon, Gangwon Province, at around 4:10 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Army. An ...