The nation’s antitrust watchdog and eBay Inc. signed Thursday an agreement for fair trade in the growing online ecommerce market ― the first of its kind here. The U.S.-based company, which owns Gmarket and Auction, the nation’s No. 1 and No. 2 online marketplaces, will adopt a “Consumer Complaints Management System” to better protect consumer rights, the Fair Trade Commission said. The agreemen...

...Thursday even after having an inflation rate above its 3 percent target range for half a year to monitor the threat posed by the European sovereign debt crisis. “Inflation rightfully should be Seoul’s priority for the second half but the economy faces bigger uncertainty for the next few months from debt woes in Europe and the U.S. They will slow our exports and weaken business sentiment,” said Jun Min-kyoo, an economist at Korea Investment & Securities. The Bank of Korea faces challenges to correctly juggle the pace of pric...

...up from 94.9 percent in the previous month, according to the Financial Supervisory Service. A bank’s short-term refinancing rate gauges the percentage of its new borrowing against foreign currency de...al of Greece’s austerity measures. “Conditions slightly soured on concerns the rejection of Greece’s austerity measures may heighten southern Europe’s financial crisis, but they recovered after the m...

...ntal June supplies,” the IEA said. But current crude oil production in OPEC countries is still “well short of the 31.3 mbd call (expected demand)” for the third quarter, the IEA reported. The group’s spare capacity “is expected to remain limited while Libyan supplies are constrained,” the IEA said. Non-OPEC output rose by 0.4 mbd to 52.5 mbd in June and will average a lower 53.1 mbd in 2011, th...

Sony Corp., Japan’s largest exporter of consumer electronics, plans to introduce a line of upgraded digital book readers in the U.S. by as early as next month to challenge Kindle-maker Amazon.com Inc...ts push to sell dedicated digital readers because they are cheaper than tablet computers, Lubell said. Apple Inc.’s cheapest iPad is 67 percent more expensive than Sony’s high-end reader. (Bloomberg)

... the many proposals to raise taxes and cut and reallocate government spending to regain our country’s economic health, one of the most sensitive is decreasing the tax deductibility of charitable contr...the mirror and ask whether certain changes and compromise may be best for their own, their children’s and the nation’s future. The charities’ public calls also would embarrass and provoke the leaders...

...s. Allowing private investors to establish for-profit hospitals was one of President Lee Myung-bak’s campaign pledges. But the incumbent government has been split on this issue. Advocates argue that ...d, would open the floodgates for investment in hospitals, making medical services one of the nation’s new growth engines. According to the Bank of Korea, the introduction of for-profit hospitals woul...

...ntral and local governments also increased from 71 trillion won to 108 trillion won. But the nation’s welfare workforce merely gained 4.4 percent during the five years, totaling 22,461 in 2010. As a ...ficient” government. He preached that a small government was a prerequisite for boosting the nation’s sagging economy. He abolished three ministries in his bid to cut down on the number of civil serva...