South Korean public corporations’ bond sales have nearly doubled in three years as they increasingly resort to debt issuance to help finance state development projects, financial sources said Sunday. The value of outstanding bonds issued by state land developer LH Corp. and other public corporations under the central and provincial governments came to 283 trillion won ($247 billion) as of Friday...

Male white-collar workers in their 30s with a college degree are the biggest users of online portals’ news services, a report showed on Sunday. According to the report issued by the Korea Press Foundation, male users make up 55.2 percent of news consumers at Korea’s top three portals. The survey, based on users who regularly browse news at Naver, Daum and Nate, showed that those aged 30-39 acco...

South Korean shares are expected to rebound this week, as European leaders agreed last week on a series of fiscal measures to stem the ongoing debt crisis, analysts said Saturday. At their two-day summit that ended Friday, European leaders agreed to tighten anti-deficit rules and funnel money to the International Monetary Fund, thus preventing future debt run-ups. “The outcomes were roughly in ...

South Korea’s gaming industry will likely see its sales reach nearly 18 trillion won ($15.6 billion) by the end of this year, mainly due to an increase in lottery sales, industry data showed Sunday. Sales of six legal gaming sectors including lottery, casino and horse-racing are expected to reach 17.8 trillion won this year, equivalent to more than 1.5 percent of the country’s gross domestic pro...

South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said Sunday that it has fined four South Korean and Japanese makers of cathode-ray tube glass a combined 54.5 billion won ($47.5 million) for colluding to fix prices. Samsung Corning Precision Materials Co. was slapped with the largest fine of 32.4 billion won, with Hankook Electric Glass Co., the local subsidiary of Japan’s Asahi Glass Co. receiving a fine of 18...

Korea, Japan and China are scheduled to wrap up their joint study on a three-way free trade agreement Friday, portending the beginning of negotiations early next year. A free trade deal binding the three nations that account for a fifth of the world’s economic output and a sixth of the global trade volume could help resolve geopolitical uncertainties in the region and advance reunification of th...

LG Electronics, the world’s third-largest flat-screen TV producer, said on Sunday it received high marks from leading product review magazines in Europe. “What Hi-Fi Sound and Vision,” a leading consumer reviews magazine, gave a five-star rating to the LG Cinema 3D Home Theater in its November issue. The company received positive reviews for its home theater and related gadgets released this ye...

Korea’s unemployment rate is expected to slightly rise next year on the back of sluggish economic growth at home and abroad, leading private think tanks said Sunday. LG Economic Research Institute forecast the country’s jobless rate will be 3.7 percent next year, while Hyundai Research Institute predicted 3.6 percent. Both figures are up from this year’s estimated 3.5 percent. Samsung Economic ...

The nation’s top financial regulator on Friday urged accounting firms to commit to a rigorous audit of troubled savings banks to uproot accounting fraud. Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Kwon Hyouk-se pinpointed the lack of transparency in financial reports in the industry at a breakfast meeting with chiefs of the industry’s 13 biggest accounting firms. “Transparency is an essential element i...

More than half of securities company chiefs in Korea are about see the end of their terms, signaling a wave of management changes in the brokerage industry. According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, 29 out of 49 securities firms will see their tenures end next year. In particular, most of the 10 major securities firms are affected. Samsung Securities replaced its CEO on Dec. 7. ...

South Korea’s producer prices grew at the slowest clip in one year in November as prices of vegetables and fruits fell sharply, the central bank said Friday. The producer price index, a barometer of future consumer inflation, rose 5.1 percent in November from a year earlier, cooling from a 5.6 percent on-year gain in October, according to the Bank of Korea. Last month‘s data marked the slowest ...