The Bank of Korea said Friday it has injected a net 7 trillion won ($6.1 billion) in liquidity into the financial system to help keep the money supply stable ahead of the Chuseok holiday. The central bank said its money injection for the 10 business days leading up to the holiday jumped 43.3 percent from a year ago as this year's holiday is the longest in decades. The government gave everyone Mo...

Purchases made through mobile devices in South Korea continued to break new records last month as a growing number of people spend more time with their handsets, government data showed Friday. Mobile transactions through smartphones and tablets reached an all-time high of 4.04 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in August, up 29.5 percent from a year earlier, according to data from Statistics Korea. Th...

South Korea's next ambassador to Russia on Friday stressed the importance of Russia's role in resolving North Korea's nuclear impasse. Woo Yoon-keun made the remark in his speech at a conference on Korea-Russia relations in Seoul attended by officials and experts from both countries. "Russia is the most important country in resolving emergency situations such as the North's nuclear problem that...

South Korean biopharmaceutical firm Celltrion Inc. on Friday said it has decided to be listed on the main bourse after being traded on the tech-heavy KOSDAQ market. The decision made by shareholders earlier in the day in Incheon, will likely put the drug company within the top 17 in terms of aggregate value of shares among KOSPI companies. At present the total value of the company's shares stand...

NEW YORK -- The chief of South Korean conglomerate SK Group said Thursday its chipmaking unit's participation in a deal to acquire Toshiba Corp.'s memory business still has many hurdles to clear, adding he will keep the company on its toes until the deal is finalized. Japanese tech giant Toshiba signed a deal Thursday to sell its memory business to a global consortium which includes participants...

South Korean stocks extended gains late Friday morning as institutions turned buyers offsetting foreign selling. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 13.14 points, or 0.55 percent, to 2,386.28 as of 11:20 a.m. The main index rose for a second consecutive session after a week-long losing streak due to foreign selling. Foreigners continued to sell local stocks for a fifth straigh...

South Korea's financial authorities said Friday they will ban all forms of initial coin offerings, joining a wave of global regulations against the popular fundraising scheme with cryptocurrencies. The decision came after a meeting of senior officials from relevant ministries, led by the Financial Services Commission, the regulator said in a statement. Initial coin offerings allow start-ups or ...

A state-run North Korean overseas propaganda outlet on Friday bashed the recent flight drill of US strategic bombers and fighters near its coast as a dangerous and impermissible anti-Pyongyang act. "The independent sortie of a US B-1B Lancer strategic bomber squadron over international waters in the East Sea is an extremely dangerous act, designed to drive the situation of the Korean Peninsula t...

The PyeongChang Olympic Stadium, the stage for the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, will be completed over the weekend, the event's organizers said Friday. PyeongChang's organizing committee said the 35,000-seat venue in PyeongChang, 180 kilometers east of Seoul, will be finished Saturday, 22 months after the start of its construction. The pentagonal shape o...

Retail sales in South Korea increased 4.3 percent in August from a year earlier, driven by strong sales posted by online malls and convenience stores, government data showed Friday. Sales of 13 major online stores and marketplaces jumped 13.1 percent on-year last month as more people bought airline tickets and travel packages, as well as clothing and fashion items via the Internet, according to ...

The local unit of global furniture giant IKEA said Friday it will launch an augmented reality technology-based mobile application next week to provide a better chance for customers to shop for its products, with its second outlet set to open in October. IKEA Place, where people can virtually place furniture in their homes or offices using the AR technology, will be available on the Apple's App S...

Two-thirds of South Koreans expect the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics to be a success, a government survey showed Friday. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced the results of its fourth survey on PyeongChang, in which 66.6 percent of the respondents said the competition would be successful. The ministry had previously conducted surveys on PyeongChang 2018, the first Winter Oly...

The main opposition leader on Friday railed against President Moon Jae-in's sweeping drive to address the alleged misdeeds of former conservative governments. Hong Joon-pyo, the chief of the Liberty Korea Party, linked the campaign to former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun, who committed suicide in 2009 amid a corruption probe during the conservative Lee Myung-bak administration. His criticism c...

South Korea's unification ministry will simultaneously seek to improve North Korea's dismal human rights situation and provide humanitarian assistance to North Koreans this year, officials said Friday. The move is part of Seoul's 2017 action plans to implement a three-year strategy to improve Pyongyang's abject rights situation, in line with a new law on North Korean human rights that went into ...

DAEJEON -- Unionized cabin crewmembers of South Korea's KTX bullet trains began a two-day strike Friday following the collapse of their wage talks with management, union officials said. The labor union of KORAIL Tourism Development Co., a unit of the state rail operator Korea Railroad Corp., said unionized workers walked off the job early Friday morning in protest over the failed wage negotiatio...