South Korea's energy minister said Friday that the country is gradually pushing forward a zero nuclear policy that will extend into the next 60 years so as to meet the rising demand for safer and cleaner energy. "It is the right time to transform our energy base into a safe and clean one," Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Paik Un-gyu said in a conference in Seoul. "There is a need to move ...

Deputy Prime Minister for economic affairs and Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon on Thursday reiterated the government’s plan to impose taxes on clergy, dismissing persistent complaints from Protestant church circles. “We shall make all preparations so that the religious taxation may take effect from next year without setbacks,” the minister told reporters after his meeting with Protestant leaders....

South Korea's top economic policymaker on Thursday expressed concerns that ballooning household debt may narrow room for policy maneuvering in Asia's fourth-largest economy when interest rates rise, while downplaying the chance of high household debt posing a threat to the overall economy. "The risk of massive household debt will unlikely spill over to the entire economy," Finance Minister Kim D...

The domestic chemical industry has responded to the government‘s push toward active domestic investments and job creation demands as major chemical companies have vowed to expand large-scale investment projects totaling some 10 trillion won ($8.8 billion), the government said Thursday. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, S-Oil, Lotte Chemical and Hanwha Total Petrochemical ...

South Korean companies' combined sales jumped 8 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier helped by increased sales of semiconductor and other electronic goods, central bank data showed Thursday. The on-year sales growth rate marks a turnaround from a 1.9 percent contraction in the second quarter of last year, the Bank of Korea said in a statement. The yearly growth rate for the second-...

South Korea has decided to impose anti-dumping duties on ferroalloy imported from Vietnam, India and Ukraine, the trade commission here said Thursday. The Korea Trade Commission said it made the final decision to levy punitive duties of 4.06-19.06 percent on ferro-silico-manganese imported from the three countries for the next five years, for underselling their products here and causing damage t...

Tensions over a raft of provocations by North Korea are not high enough to adjust ratings on South Korea, a senior official of the global rating agency Standard & Poor's said Thursday. "As long as there is no actual war outbreak, I think the impact is relatively limited, and that's why we don't change our outlook on the rating of South Korea," Kim Eng Tan, senior director of Asia-Pacific soverei...

With Asia home to more than half of the world’s urban population, the depletion of natural resources, diminishing water quality, increased air pollution and adverse climate change effects are considered some of the biggest threats to humanity that experts are looking to combat amid growing urbanization across the continent. Therefore, Kim Jae-hyun, minster for the Korea Forest Service, is stres...

Finance Minister Kim Dong-yeon said Wednesday that the government will carefully review how much it will raise the minimum wage from 2019, indicating that the government may slow the growth pace to reflect various conditions. In July, the government decided to raise the minimum wage by 16.4 percent to 7,530 won ($6.67) per hour next year, marking its biggest jump in nearly two decades. Presiden...

Korea’s manufacturing industries have been losing their vitality, squeezed between worsening external conditions and domestic policies that are an increasing burden on them. Industrial facilities across the country ran at 71.6 percent of their capacities on average in the second quarter of this year, according to Statistics Korea. The figure is the lowest since the January-March period of 2009 ...

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency is running a job fair for international students from Wednesday to Thursday. Organized by KOTRA, the two-day event runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Coex in Samseong-dong, southern Seoul. More than 2,500 international students from some 50 countries signed up for the fair. In addition, 129 Korean companies including Cuckoo electronics and Daewoong Pharmac...

South Korea’s single-person households saw an income drop for a third consecutive quarter in the second quarter this year, data by Statistics Korea showed Wednesday. The decline was attributed to a decrease in temporary jobs, many of which are taken by the elderly and young people. Elderly retired persons tend to make up a large portion of single-person households, according to the Statistics Ko...

The average adjusted monthly wage for workers at South Korea's big businesses far exceeds those of their US and Japanese counterparts, although South Korea's per capita GDP is much lower than the two advanced economies, a report showed Wednesday. The average South Korean employee at companies with more than 500 workers earned $6,048 per month last year when adjusted by the purchasing power parit...

South Korea's trade minister said Wednesday that taking China to the World Trade Organization is one option being considered in response to that country's apparent retaliatory actions against Seoul's decision to deploy a US missile shield. The Beijing government slammed the deployment of the defense system, called THAAD, on South Korean soil, claiming that the system will threaten its national s...

South Korea's semiconductor exports are expected to exceed $90 billion this year due to increased overseas chip demand and higher prices, an international traders organization said Wednesday. In the January-August period, outbound shipments of computer chips surged 52 percent on-year to $59.5 billion, the Korea International Trade Association said in a statement. "If the country reports an aver...