South Korea's central bank governor said on Thursday the pace of monetary policy easing would need to be flexible this year due to heightened political and economic uncertainty, Reuters reported. "This year, conditions surrounding our economy will be more difficult than ever before," Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong said in a New Year's address. "Monetary policy needs to be operated with flexibility and agility, as political and economic uncertainty is unprecedentedly high," Rhee said.
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South Korea
South Korea’s headline inflation averaged 2.3% in 2024 after staying below the central bank’s 2% target for a fourth consecutive month in December, the Wall Street Journal reported. The benchmark consumer-price index rose 1.9% from a year earlier in December, following the 1.5% rise in November, the country’s statistics office said Tuesday. The latest reading was above the median forecast of a 1.7% increase projected by nine economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.
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Terraform Labs Pte. co-founder Do Kwon will be handed over to the US for prosecution, the government of Montenegro said, potentially ending a standoff over competing extradition demands by the US and Kwon’s native South Korea, Bloomberg News reported. “Most criteria envisaged by the law are in favor of the extradition demands from the institutions of the United States of America,” the Montenegro’s Justice Ministry said in statement posted on its website. It said Minister Bojan Bozovic made the decision on Friday, without specifying when the handover may take place.
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South Korea's factory output fell more sharply than expected in November, government data showed on Monday, amid slowing exports and weakening business confidence, Reuters reported. The industrial output index fell 0.7% over the month on a seasonally adjusted basis, after no change in the prior month. That compared with a fall of 0.4% forecast in a Reuters survey of economists. On an annual basis, the index was up 0.1%, according to Statistics Korea, slower than gains of 6.3% the month before and 0.4% expected by economists.
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Shares of South Korean budget carrier Jeju Air hit their lowest on record on Monday, after the deadliest air crash in the country killed 179 people, Reuters reported. Jeju Air shares traded down 8.5% as of 0312 GMT, after falling as much as 15.7% earlier in the session to 6,920 won, the lowest since they were listed in 2015. The share slide on Monday wiped out as much as 95.7 billion won ($65.2 million) in market capitalisation. Shares of AK Holdings, the holding company of Jeju Air, fell as much as 12% and hit their lowest in 16 years.
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South Korea’s consumer confidence dropped by the most since the outbreak of COVID-19 this month, battered by the political turmoil triggered by President Yoon Suk Yeol’s declaration of martial law and his impeachment, Bloomberg News reported. The composite consumer sentiment index slipped 12.3 points to 88.4 in December, falling well below the threshold of 100 that divides optimism and pessimism, according to a Bank of Korea survey released Tuesday. That’s the biggest slide since the World Health Organization declared the pandemic in March 2020, sending global consumer sentiment tanking.
South Korea's finance ministry said on Wednesday it was ready to deploy "unlimited" liquidity into financial markets after President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted a martial law declaration he imposed overnight that pushed the won to multi-year lows, Reuters reported. The announcement came after Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok and Bank of Korea Governor Rhee Chang-yong held emergency talks overnight, and as the central bank board abruptly met to approve rescue measures for the local credit market.
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South Korea's export growth slowed for a fourth-straight month in November, to the weakest level in 14 months, as shipments to the United States and China fell amid tariff uncertainty, trade data showed on Sunday, Reuters reported. Exports out of Asia's fourth-largest economy rose 1.4% in November from a year earlier, after a gain of 4.6% in October, to $56.35 billion. It was the 14th-straight month exports rose in annual terms but the slowest rate for the sequence, also missing a median forecast of a 2.8% increase tipped in a Reuters poll of economists. Last month, U.S.
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South Korea’s household debt grew the most in three years last quarter, highlighting a development that kept the central bank from pivoting on policy until last month, Bloomberg News reported. Total household credit rose by 18 trillion won ($12.9 billion) in the July-September period compared with the previous quarter, according to data released Tuesday by the Bank of Korea. Mortgage loans, a major component of the credit, also rose by the most since the third quarter of 2021.
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Korea Zinc, whose management is embroiled in a takeover battle for the world's top refined zinc producer, said on Monday that a government panel had found its lithium-ion battery material technology was subject to export controls, Reuters reported. The industry ministry, which has a committee of experts to review and rule on applications for designating "national core technology", also said the panel had recently granted Korea Zinc's case and notified it of the decision without elaborating.
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