South Korea's national tax office collected a record amount of penalty taxes in 2016 in close cooperation with the intelligence unit of the financial regulator, a lawmaker said Wednesday. Citing data from the National Tax Service, Rep. Park Myung-jae of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party said the tax service collected 2.5 trillion won ($2.2 billion) in back taxes on tips from the Financial ...

Business leaders of South Korea and Japan gathered in Seoul on Tuesday to discuss ways to step up collaboration in the technology and energy sectors, as well as in facilitating multilateral free trade with other Asian nations. About 300 businessmen from major companies attended the meeting hosted by the Korea-Japan Economic Association in downtown Seoul to share views on the next technological r...

President Moon Jae-in called Tuesday for efforts to craft a new growth strategy based on industrial innovation as one of his administration's key economic policy pillars along with income-led growth and fairness. The new innovation-led growth strategy was first introduced when the president met with US investors and business leaders on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New ...

South Korea's national health insurance will provide greater coverage for the treatment of infertility and serious dementia starting in October, the health ministry said Tuesday, which is in line with the government's effort to reduce financial burdens on patients. The Ministry of Health and Welfare said the revision to the relevant law was passed during a Cabinet meeting. Under the revision, p...

South Korea will ease regulations on leasing state-owned properties to make better use of neglected public assets, the finance ministry said Tuesday. The Cabinet approved a revised law that allows the government to cut rents on its buildings and land that have not been fully utilized for a long time and to extend leasing contracts by up to 20 years, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Fina...

South Korea's commerce minister said Tuesday the nation's economic fundamentals remain sound despite North Korea's provocations, and called on foreign enterprises doing business here to increase their investments. Paik Un-gyu, the chief of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, said in a meeting with local directors of international companies, including Boeing, 3M, IKEA, BMW and Oracle, tha...

South Korea's consumer confidence fell for the second month in a row in September on the North Korea risk and Seoul's row with Beijing over a missile defense system, a central bank poll showed Tuesday. The composite consumer sentiment index for September stood at 107.7, down 2.2 points from the previous month, according to the survey by the Bank of Korea. In August, the index fell 1.3 points fr...

The Improper Solicitation and Graft Act has continuously been questioned over the crippling effect it allegedly holds over domestic consumption, but after a year in implementation, its impact on most sectors of the economy turned out to have been limited, according to the latest data. The anti-graft law, often dubbed the Kim Young-ran law after its initiator, did weigh down on upmarket restauran...

The growing signs of the Korean economy weakening amid deteriorating conditions at home and abroad are prompting the government to work on additional stimulus measures. Economic indicators have taken a steep downturn in recent months. The on-year increase in the number of employees remained at 212,000 in August, the lowest in four and a half years, according to Statistics Korea. Output in the ...

While the world economy is on a recovering trend, South Korea continues to suffer from aggravating unemployment, particularly among the youth, data showed Monday. The average unemployment rate among the member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has steadily declined over the past six months. However, that of South Korea has continued to surge for the past four...

About half of South Korea's manufacturing firms have hiring plans next year, the central bank said in a report Monday. The Bank of Korea said 52 percent of 279 firms across the country said they plan to hire new recruits next year and among them, 38.9 percent said they will increase the number of recruits in 2018 compared with this year. By sector, 52.6 percent of information technology firms s...

South Korea's exports of health care and cosmetics goods continued to grow in the first half of this year on the back of strong global demand, government data showed Monday. Outbound shipments of locally produced drugs, medical equipment and cosmetics were valued at $5.41 billion in the January-June period, up 13.4 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest data from the Ministry of He...

Income polarization has deepened in South Korea during the past decades amid a growing number of high income earners coming from already rich and well-educated parents, a report said Monday. The report written by professor Ju Byeong-ki of Seoul National University said income has been set not only by the efforts of individuals but also the economic clout and education of their parents. The repo...

A quarterly report by the Bank for International Settlements showed that the debt-service ratio for the households in South Korea reached 12.5 percent, up 0.7 percentage points from a year ago in the first quarter this year. This is the highest level since the first quarter in 1999 when the relevant data started to be collected.

South Korea's tax authorities have imposed 1.307 trillion won ($1.15 billion) in taxes on offshore tax evaders last year, an opposition lawmaker said Sunday. The National Tax Service has collected only 1.067 trillion won in taxes as some people filed complaints with the country's Tax Tribunal against its decisions to slap taxes on offshore tax evaders, said Park Myung-jae, a lawmaker of the Libe...