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The finance chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan have been making arrangements for a three-way meeting, Seoul’s finance ministry said Sunday.
“The timing, venue and agenda of the South Korea-U.S.-Japan finance ministers meeting are being discussed by the three countries,” the ministry said in a statement.
The finance chiefs are expected to take part in annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington in April.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
Rescue operations were under way after a fishing boat with nine crew members on board capsized off the southern coastal city of Tongyeong, leaving four dead and five others missing, according to the Coast Guard on Sunday.
Two South Koreans and seven Indonesians were aboard the 20-ton vessel when it overturned in waters 68 kilometers south of an island in Tongyeong, South Gyeongsang Province, on Saturday morning, according to officials.
About 20 ships and four airplanes were mobilized for an underwater hunt for the missing crew members.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard said it found four of the nine crew members, with three found unconscious inside the vessel and sent to a hospital. But the four victims, the South Korean skipper and three Indonesian nationals, were pronounced dead.
The Coast Guard plans to salvage the ship later Sunday.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
The portion of foreigners who bought real estate in South Korea last year hit a record high, led by Chinese buyers, court data showed Sunday.
A total of 15,600 foreign nationals completed property purchases in 2023, accounting for a record 0.9 percent of the total land acquisitions, according to the data from the online real estate registry service run by the Supreme Court.
The percentage of foreign buyers in the South Korean real estate market has been on a steady increase since the South Korean court started to compile such data in 2010.
It was 0.2 percent in 2010 and rose to 0.33 percent in 2014, 0.64 percent in 2018 and 0.75 percent in 2022.
By country, Chinese people buying real estate in the country totaled 11,000 last year, accounting for 72.9 percent of all foreign buyers in the country, followed by Americans at 7,800 and Canadians at 1,600.
The data also demonstrated that more than 12,000 foreigners purchased residential properties, including apartments, representing a share of 1.21 percent in
the segment.
In Incheon, 27 kilometers west of Seoul, non-Korean buyers accounted for 2.09 percent of total residential transactions, and South Chungcheong Province saw a foreign portion of 1.74 percent, while Gyeonggi Province recorded 1.68 percent, according to the data.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
South Korea is expected to pass a proposal to shut down a support foundation for the now-shuttered inter-Korean industrial complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong as early as next week, the unification ministry said Sunday.
The revision to the decree on support for the Kaesong Industrial Complex will be presented at a Cabinet meeting Tuesday, which will entrust the foundation’s tasks to the civilian sector, according to the ministry.
The foundation — set up in 2007 to support the operation of the factory park — has almost ceased to function since Seoul shut down the complex in 2016 in protest of Pyongyang’s nuclear test and its long-range missile launch at the time.
If the proposal is passed, it will likely take around one week for it to take effect, with the South-North Korea Exchanges and Cooperation Support Association set to take over the foundation’s tasks.
A ministry official said the foundation’s dismantling will have no impact on Seoul’s planned legal action against the North’s unauthoriz
ed operation of the complex. The ministry is currently reviewing a damages suit over the North’s continued illegal operation of the park.
The factory park, once a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, was home to more than 120 small South Korean plants that produced garments and other labor-intensive goods by employing more than 54,300 North Korean workers.
Amid frosty inter-Korean relations, North Korea blew up the joint liaison office in the Kaesong complex in 2020 in anger over Seoul’s failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
South Korea has experienced a continued contraction in domestic demand though rising exports have mitigated an economic slowdown, a state-run think tank said Sunday.
“Domestic demand remains sluggish, yet exports are rapidly growing, thereby easing the contraction in economic activity,” the Korea Development Institute (KDI) said in a monthly economic assessment report.
“The value of construction completed exhibited a temporary uptick, yet both consumption and equipment investment continue to stagnate under the strain of sustained high interest rates,” it added.
Retail sales, a gauge of private spending, advanced 0.8 percent on-month in January, but the figure shed 3.4 percent on an on-year basis, extending its losing run to the seventh consecutive month.
Facility investment added 4.1 percent on-year, but the growth was largely attributable to such temporary factors as base effects and additional working days. In a seasonally adjusted on-month term, it fell 5.6 percent.
“Domestic demand risks linger; del
inquency rates on household and personal business loans have stayed high and certain items, such as agricultural products, are experiencing an increasing inflationary trend due to deteriorating supply-side factors,” the report read.
In contrast with weak consumption and investment, exports have shown a recovery trend driven by solid demand for semiconductors.
Exports rose for the fifth consecutive month in February after a yearlong downturn.
“Concerns over a global economic downturn and dwindling global trade have eased, and the circumstances act as a supportive factor for exports,” the KDI said.
Speaking of inflation, the think tank said that supply-side inflationary pressure intensified to accelerate the growth of consumer prices. But it pointed to the continued easing of underlying inflation.
In February, consumer prices, a key gauge of inflation, rose back to over 3 percent in a month to stand at 3.1 percent on high prices of fruits and other farm produce, as well as global oil prices.
The governmen
t has said that consumer prices are forecast to ease at a slower pace than earlier expected before reaching their target rate of 2 percent by around the end of 2024.
The finance ministry expected this year’s prices to grow 2.6 percent.
Source: Yonhap News Agency
Major general hospitals in South Korea continued to report delays and cancellations of surgeries, as the mass resignations of trainee doctors and their departures from the medical field have been prolonged, with no signs of a solution in sight.
Despite growing calls for a solution from within the medical community, there have been no signs that attempts are being made to hold talks between the defiant trainee doctors and the government.
More than 90 percent of 13,000 medical interns and residents have remained off their jobs through mass resignations for nearly three weeks in protest of the government’s decision to increase medical school enrollment by 2,000 next year.
The government has taken steps to suspend the medical licenses of striking trainee doctors, urging them to return to work.
Since Tuesday, the government has been sending out documents to trainee doctors who have yet to return to their jobs, giving prior notice on the suspension of their medical licenses.
The document includes details on t
he government’s back-to-work order and warns that those who do not submit feedback by March 25 could have their licenses suspended in accordance with relevant procedures.
Trainee doctors can file administrative complaints against the government in the event their licenses are suspended.
The government’s hawkish stance to punish striking trainee doctors seemed to encourage some professors at medical schools to leave their jobs and join the collective action by younger doctors.
Some professors have already tendered their resignations in protest against their universities’ decision to accept the government’s plan to expand the medical school enrollment.
A group of medical professors had a meeting Saturday to discuss ways to break the deadlock but failed to reach a conclusion.
To make up for the shortage of medical staff, moreover, health authorities began formally allowing nurses at major hospitals to perform CPR and administer medication to emergency patients.
With emergency units at military hospitals op
ened to the public, the health ministry launched a pilot program late last month, enabling nurses to undertake specific responsibilities held by doctors in a restricted capacity.
The collective action by trainee doctors, who play a vital role in assisting senior doctors during surgeries and dealing with inpatients while training at major general hospitals, has resulted in widespread cancellations and delays in surgeries and emergency medical treatment at general hospitals nationwide.
Critics say the striking doctors oppose the government plan as they worry adding more doctors would result in tougher competition and lower income.
The Korean Medical Association (KMA), the country’s biggest lobby group for doctors, argues the government plan won’t fix fundamental problems in the medical system, including doctor shortages in fields seen as lower paying, as well as a high concentration of doctors in urban areas.
Source: Yonhap News Agency