The government is expected to unveil an improved corporate pension plan at the end of this year with an extension of corporate pension plans and deregulation on the of their operations. Under the proposed revision of the corporate pension system, Korean companies with over 300 employees will be obliged to run a retirement pension plan for their employees by 2016, and this will be expanded to all...

South Korea’s trade volume with Japan has seen a decline recently on the back of a weak yen and Seoul’s reduced reliance on importing industrial parts and materials from the country, according to the Korea International Trade Association. KITA said trade volume between the two nations had reached $42.9 billion in the first half of this year to record a 9.8 percent drop from the same period last ...

Choi Kyung-hwan, the deputy prime minister for economic affairs and finance minister, urged economic ministers Friday to step up their efforts to help pass economic stimulus bills pending in the National Assembly. “Legislative support is needed from the National Assembly in order to revive the economy. However, many of the economic stimulus bills are still pending, dragging down the government’s...

The Export-Import Bank of Korea said it has issued foreign currency bonds worth $1 billion to investors in the global market on Wednesday. The bank issued 5-year and 12-year bonds to raise $500 million with each, and their interest rates were 72.5 bps and 85 bps higher than U.S. government bonds, respectively. In particular, the 5-year bond’s interest rate is the lowest since the global financia...

Rescuers dug through shattered homes Monday looking for survivors of a strong earthquake in southern China's Yunnan province as the death toll rose to at least 398 people, with more than 1,800 injured. About 12,000 homes collapsed when the quake struck Sunday afternoon in impoverished Ludian county, around 370 kilometers (230 miles) northeast of Yunnan's capital, Kunming, China's official Xinhua...

North Korea's trade with its economic lifeline China fell 2.1 percent on year to US$2.89 billion in the first six months of this year, data compiled by South Korea's government trade agency showed Monday, in another sign that strained political ties between the two nations have affected their economic relations. During the six-month period, North Korea's exports to China declined 3.9 percent to ...

Naver, South Korea’s largest search engine, on Thursday said its operating profits rose 38 percent in the second quarter, driven by its strong overseas performance. The company posted 191.1 billion won ($186 million) in business profits to record a 38 percent rise from the 189.1 billion won a year ago. Sales were at 697.8 billion won, representing a 22 percent increase compared to the same perio...

Kakao Corp., the operator of Korea’s most-used mobile messenger Kakao Talk, is scheduled to launch a news content service later this year. “We plan to start offering news content that collects and shows information from news, blogs and social networking services. For this, the company is in talks with media outlets to open the new mobile service in the second half of this year,” Kakao’s spokespe...