YCLOAK

The heaviest, the largest, the most impactful —  those were the superlatives the Trump administration used to describe its latest sanctions against North Korea.

But were the Treasury Department designations of more than 50 companies and ships accused of illicit trading with the pariah nation really the toughest action yet by the U.S. and the wider world?

Probably not.

Here’s a look at how President Donald Trump and a top lieutenant described Friday’s sanctions to punish the North for its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles — and how they stack up against past economic restrictions that have been piled on Kim Jong Un’s government in response to its illegal weapons tests.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin: “The Treasury Department is announcing the largest set of sanctions ever imposed in connection with North Korea.”

Trump: “I do want to say, because people have asked, North Korea — we imposed today the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before.”

As for Trump’s blanket assertion, in sheer dollar terms, the U.S. has actually imposed much costlier restrictions on countries such as Iran, a far richer economy than North Korea’s. Washington and its allies cut off tens of billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian oil exports and shut the country’s central bank out of the international financial system, among other steps, before eliminating those restrictions under a 2015 nuclear deal.

Correct on number

In terms of the number of entities targeted Friday, Mnuchin is probably correct about the history of sanctions on North Korea.

The department blacklisted “one individual, 27 entities and 28 vessels” located, registered or flagged in North Korea, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Marshall Islands, Tanzania, Panama and Comoros. That appeared to be the most companies or individuals designated by the U.S. at a single time. According to Mnuchin, there are now more than 450 U.S. sanctions against North Korea, about half of them levied in the last year.

But in purely economic terms, both Mnuchin and Trump are well wide of the mark.

The latest designations are primarily intended to crack down on North Korea’s evasion of wider-ranging sanctions adopted by the U.N. Security Council and the United States that are more economically significant.

Over the past year, the council has adopted three sets of sanctions banning North Korean exports of coal, iron ore, textiles, seafood products and other goods. If those measures are properly implemented, that would reduce the North’s export revenues by 90 percent from 2016 levels, or by $2.3 billion annually. Those sanctions are also heavily restricting North Korean fuel supplies. They capped refined oil imports at 500,000 barrels a year. That’s a reduction from the 4.5 million barrels North Korea imported in 2016.

It’s because of those draconian restrictions that North Korea wants to conduct trade on the quiet with “ship-to-ship” transfers that the U.S. is determined to stop. With Friday’s measures, Mnuchin said, the U.S. has gone after “virtually all their ships that they’re using at this moment.”

That’s certainly a significant increase in pressure on North Korea as its foreign trade diminishes. But the Treasury Department did not give an overall figure for how much revenue the North would be deprived of because of the latest actions, other than to say that nine of the newly blacklisted foreign vessels “are capable of carrying over $5.5 million worth of coal at a time.”

‘Underwhelming’ in scope

The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation did not think much of the new steps.

“As impressive as the list is in length, it is underwhelming in its scope and fails to live up to the hype,” it said. “Like his predecessors, President Trump remains reluctant to go after Chinese financial entities aiding North Korea’s prohibited nuclear and missile programs.”

China is said to account for about 90 percent of North Korea’s external trade and be its main access point to the international financial system. Past U.S. sanctions that have targeted Chinese companies have probably had a much bigger impact on North Korea’s revenue streams.

In November, the Treasury Department blacklisted three Chinese companies that it said had “cumulatively exported approximately $650 million worth of goods to North Korea and cumulatively imported more than $100 million worth of goods from North Korea.”

An even bigger Chinese trading partner of the North was blacklisted in September 2016: Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co. According to a report by the U.S.-based research group C4AD and South Korea’s Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Hongxiang carried out imports and exports worth a total of $532 million in 2011-15. It had also supplied aluminum oxide and other materials that can be used in processing nuclear bomb fuel.
…

Federal Reserve policymakers fretted on Friday that they could face the next U.S. recession with virtually the same arsenal of policies used in the last downturn and, with interest rates still relatively low, those will not pack the same punch.

In the midst of an unprecedented leadership transition, Fed officials are publicly debating whether to scrap their approach to inflation targeting, how much of its bond portfolio to retain, and how much longer they can raise interest rates in the face of an unexpectedly large boost from tax cuts and government spending.

After years of near-zero rates and $3.5 trillion in bond purchases all meant to stimulate the economy in the wake of the 2007-09 recession, the Fed has gradually tightened policy since late 2015. Its key rate is now in the range of 1.25 to 1.5 percent, and while the Fed plans to hike three more times this

year it has also forecast that it is about halfway to its goal.

That could leave little room to provide stimulus when the world’s largest economy, which is heating up, eventually turns around.

“We would be better off, rather than thinking about what we would do next time when we hit zero, making sure that we don’t get back there. We just don’t want to be there,” Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren told a conference of economists and the majority of his colleagues at the central bank.

Rosengren, one of only a few sitting policymakers who also served during the last downturn, said the expanding U.S. deficits could further erode the government’s ability to help curb any future recession. “With the deficits we are running up, it’s not likely [fiscal policy] will be helpful in the next

recession either,” he said.

Since mid-December, the Republican-controlled Congress and U.S. President Donald Trump aggressively cut taxes and boosted spending limits, two fiscal moves that are expected to push the annual budget deficit above $1 trillion next year and expand the $20 trillion national debt.

Overheating

That stimulus, combined with synchronized global growth, signs of U.S. inflation perking up, and unemployment near a 17-year low could set the stage for overheating that ends one of the longest economic expansions ever.

“We want more shock absorbers out there and really … the main shock absorber is the ability to reduce the fed funds rate, which means that you want to get to a higher inflation rate so that the pre-shock fed funds rate is 4 and not 2,” said Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and professor at City University of New York.

In a speech to the conference hosted by the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Krugman said every recession since 1982 has been caused by “private sector over-reach” and not Fed tightening, as in decades past.

The conference’s main research paper argued the central bank should focus on cutting rates in the next recession and avoid relying on asset purchases that are less effective in stimulating investment and growth than previously thought.

In October the Fed began trimming some of its assets and it has yet to decide how far it will go. William Dudley, president of the New York Fed, told the conference that, to be sure, the ability to again purchase bonds if and when rates hit zero “seems like a good tool to have.”

The Fed’s approach to any economic slowdown would likely be to cut rates, pledge further stimulus, and only then buy bonds.

Rosengren and others dismissed the possibility of adopting negative interest rates, as some other central banks have done.

Yet five years of below-target inflation, combined with an aging population and slowdown in labor force growth, has sparked a debate over ditching a long-standing 2 percent price target.

Some see this month’s succession of Fed Chair Janet Yellen by Jerome Powell as ideal timing to consider new frameworks that could help drive inflation, and rates, higher. Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester, whom the White House is considering for Fed vice chair, told the conference the central bank could begin to reassess the framework later this year, though she added that the threshold for change should be high.
…

European Union leaders staked out opening positions Friday for a battle over EU budgets that many conceded they are unlikely to resolve before Britain leaves next year, blowing a hole in Brussels’ finances.

At a summit to launch discussion on the size and shape of a seven-year budget package to run from 2021, ex-communist states urged wealthier neighbors to plug a nearly 10 percent annual revenue gap being left by Britain, while the Dutch led a group of small, rich countries refusing to chip in any more to the EU.

Germany and France, the biggest economies and the bloc’s driving duo as Britain prepares to leave in March 2019, renewed offers to increase their own contributions, though both set out conditions for that, including new priorities and less waste.

Underlining that a divide between east and west runs deeper than money, French President Emmanuel Macron criticized what he said were poor countries abusing EU funds designed to narrow the gap in living standards after the Cold War to shore up their own popularity while ignoring EU values on civil rights or to undercut Western economies by slashing tax and labor rules.

Noting the history of EU “cohesion” and other funding for poor regions as a tool of economic “convergence,” Macron told reporters: “I will reject a European budget which is used to finance divergence, on tax, on labor or on values.”

Poland and Hungary, heavyweights among the ex-communist states which joined the EU this century, are run by right-wing governments at daggers drawn with Brussels over their efforts to influence courts, media and other independent institutions.

The European Commission, the executive which will propose a detailed budget in May, has said it will aim to satisfy calls for “conditionality” that will link getting some EU funding to meeting treaty commitments on democratic standards such as properly functioning courts able to settle economic disputes.

But its president, Jean-Claude Juncker, warned on Friday against deepening “the rift between east and west” and some in the poorer nations see complaints about authoritarian tendencies as a convenient excuse to avoid paying in more to Brussels.

At around 140 billion euros ($170 billion) a year, the EU budget represents about 1 percent of economic output in the bloc or some 2 percent of public spending, but for all that it remains one of the bloodiest subjects of debate for members.

Focus on payments

The Commission has suggested that the next package should be increased by about 10 percent, but there was little sign Friday that the governments with cash are willing to pay that.

“When the UK leaves the EU, then that part of the budget should drop out,” said Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who leads a group of hawks including Sweden, Denmark and Austria.

“In any case, we do not want our contribution to rise and we want modernization,” he added, saying that meant reconsidering the EU’s major spending on agriculture and regional cohesion in order to do more in defense, research and controlling migration.

On the other side, Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis said his priorities were “sufficient financing of cohesion policy” a good deal for businesses from the EU’s agricultural subsidies.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said there had been broad agreement that new priorities such as in defense, migration and research should get new funding and she called for a “debureaucratization” of traditional EU spending programs.

Summit chair Donald Tusk praised the 27 leaders — Prime Minister Theresa May was not invited as Britain will have left before the new budget round starts — for approaching the issue “with open minds, rather than red lines.” But despite them all wanting to speed up the process, a deal this year was unlikely.

Quick deal unlikely

Although all agree it would be good to avoid a repeat of the 11th-hour wrangling ahead of the 2014-20 package, many sounded doubtful of a quick deal even early next year.

“It could go on for ages,” Rutte said. He added that it would be “nice” to finish by the May 2019 EU election: “But that’s very tight.”

Among the touchiest subjects will be accounting for the mass arrival of asylum-seekers in recent years. Aggrieved that some eastern states refuse to take in mainly Muslim migrants, some in the west have suggested penalizing them via the EU budget.

Merkel has proposed that regions which are taking in and trying to integrate refugees should have that rewarded in the allocation of EU funding — a less obviously penal approach but one which she had to defend on Friday against criticism in the east. It was not meant as a threat, the chancellor insisted.

In other business at a summit which reached no formal legal conclusions, leaders broadly agreed on some issues relating to next year’s elections to the European Parliament and to the accompanying appointment of a new Commission for five years.

They pushed back against efforts, notably from lawmakers, to limit their choice of nominee to succeed Juncker to a candidate who leads one of the pan-EU parties in the May 2019 vote. They approved Parliament’s plan to reallocate some British seats and to cut others altogether and also, barring Hungary, agreed to a Macron proposal to launch “consultations” with their citizens this year on what they want from the EU.
…

U.S. stocks rallied on Friday, lifted by gains in technology stocks and a retreat in Treasury yields as the Federal Reserve eased concerns about the path of interest rate hikes this year.

The U.S. central bank, looking past the recent stock market sell-off and inflation concerns, said it expected economic growth to remain steady and saw no serious risks on the horizon that might pause its planned pace of rate hikes.

Investors largely expect the Fed to raise rates three times this year, beginning with its next meeting in March, the first under new Chair Jerome Powell. Traders currently see a 95.5 percent chance of a quarter-percentage-point hike next month, according to Thomson Reuters data.

“Certainly bond yields pulling back today is helpful for stocks, at least for the short term, that has been the narrative that is out there — that higher bond yields are weighing on stocks and this preoccupation with three percent,” said Willie Delwiche, investment strategist at Baird in Milwaukee. “So moving away from that, for today at least, provides a bid for equities.”

Powell’s first public outing will be on Tuesday, when he will testify separately before the House and Senate committees.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 347.51 points, or 1.39 percent, to 25,309.99, the S&P 500 gained 43.34 points, or 1.60 percent, to 2,747.30 and the Nasdaq Composite added 127.30 points, or 1.77 percent, to 7,337.39.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury notes last rose 13/32 in price to yield 2.8714 percent, from 2.917 percent late on Thursday.

The dip in yields helped boost bond proxy sectors such as utilities, up 2.66 percent, and real estate, up 1.72 percent. The sectors have been among the worst performers so far this year on expectations of climbing rates.

Tech shares climbed 2.17 percent led by gains in Hewlett Packard Enterprise, which rose 10.5 percent and HP Inc, up 3.5 percent.

The two companies created from the split of Hewlett Packard Co in 2015, reported strong results and HPE also announced a plan to return $7 billion to shareholders.

For the week, the Dow rose 0.37 percent, the S&P advanced 0.56 percent and the Nasdaq gained 1.35 percent.

Blue Buffalo Pet Products jumped 17.23 percent after General Mills said it would buy the natural pet food maker for $8 billion. General Mills was the biggest percentage decline on S&P 500, falling 3.59 percent.

Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones on the NYSE by a 4.54-to-1 ratio; on Nasdaq, a 2.82-to-1 ratio favored advancers.

The S&P 500 posted 10 new 52-week highs and one new low; the Nasdaq Composite recorded 64 new highs and 57 new lows.

Volume on U.S. exchanges was 6.05 billion shares, well below the 8.38 billion average over the last 20 trading days.

Reporting by Chuck Mikolajczak.
…

Leaders of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Pakistan and its arch rival India jointly inaugurated construction work Friday on the Afghan section of a long-delayed multibillion-dollar gas pipeline connecting the four nations, raising hopes for regional cooperation and peace.

A ceremony took place in the ancient Afghan city of Herat, attended by President Ashraf Ghani, his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and Indian External Affairs Minister M.J. Akbar.

The long-awaited 1,814 kilometer pipeline, known as TAPI, will transport natural gas from the world’s fourth-largest reserves in Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to growing economies of Pakistan and India, which are facing energy shortages.

TAPI was originally conceived in the 1990s, but differences over terms and conditions, unending Afghan hostilities and regional rivalries are blamed for delays. Turkmenistan took the initiative in December 2015 and has since constructed its portion of the pipeline up to the Afghan border.

President Ghani, while addressing Friday’s ceremony, vowed Afghanistan believes in connectivity and will “not spare any efforts” to implement the project to connect South Asia with Central Asia after a century of separation.

“This is the beginning of confidence in Afghanistan, confidence on national unity and harmony of the state and the people of Afghanistan,” noted Ghani.

Pakistani Prime Minister Abbasi reiterated his country’s commitment to peace and stability in Afghanistan.

“We are turning, by the grace of God, TAPI into a reality. It will provide shared regional prosperity … and it will provide peace dividends,” said Abbasi, whose country is accused of covertly supporting the Afghan Taliban, charges Islamabad denies as baseless.

“I want to tell my Afghan brothers and sisters that your success is our success, your development is our development and peace in Afghanistan means peace in Pakistan,” Abbasi emphasized.

He termed TAPI critical for Pakistan’s energy needs, saying it will provide about 10 percent of his country’s total energy consumption.

Expected cost

Officials say the project, estimated to cost up to $10 billion, will carry 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for 30 years and is extendable.

The final cost, however, is anticipated to be much higher because of an accompanying power transmission pipeline and the fiber optic cable to be laid from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.

Afghanistan will buy about five billion cubic meters of gas once the project is completed. Kabul also will earn up to $500 million in transit fees from the project, which Afghans expect will create about 25,000 jobs in their war-shattered nation.

The Afghan section of the pipeline will run through five provinces in the south and southwest, including Herat, Farah, NImruz, and Helmand, before entering the southern Pakistan city of Quetta.

Security concerns

Taliban insurgents control or contest much of the Afghan territory along the TAPI route, raising security concerns for the pipeline.

In a statement issued Friday, though, the insurgent group dismissed those concerns and pledged to protect the pipeline, reminding skeptics the TAPI was initially negotiated and brought to Afghanistan when the Taliban was ruling the country.

The insurgency, which currently controls or influences about 44 percent of Afghan territory, blamed the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of the country for the delay in TAPI’s implementation.

Groundbreaking for the Afghan section took place at a time when Pakistan’s relations with India have deteriorated and both countries are locked in daily border skirmishes in Kashmir.

TAPI is dubbed by some as a “peace pipeline,” citing the potential the project has to promote regional economic and security cooperation. But analysts remain skeptical about future progress in the wake of Islamabad’s prevailing tensions with Kabul and New Delhi.
…

Saudi Arabia will stage more than 5,000 shows, festivals and concerts in 2018, double the number of last year, as it tries to shake off its conservative image in a drive to keep tourist dollars at home and lure in visitors.

The state wants to capture up to a quarter of the $20 billion currently spent overseas every year by Saudis seeking entertainment, lifting a ban on cinemas and putting on shows by Western artists.

U.S. rapper Nelly performed in Jeddah in December, albeit to a men-only crowd, and Greek musician Yanni played to a mixed-gender audience.

The gradual relaxing of gender segregation risks causing a backlash from religious conservatives, but public objections to a wider program of reforms have been more muted in recent months after several critics were arrested.

At an event to launch the 2018 entertainment calendar, Ahmed al-Khatib, chairman of the state-run General Entertainment Authority (GEA), said infrastructure investments over the next decade would reach 240 billion riyals ($64 billion), including an opera house to be completed around 2022.

That will contribute 18 billion riyals to annual GDP and generate 224,000 new jobs by 2030, the GEA said.

“The bridge is starting to reverse,” Khatib said, referring to the causeway linking Saudi Arabia with more liberal Bahrain where many Saudis flock for weekend getaways.

“And I promise you that we will reverse this migration, and people from Dubai, Kuwait and Bahrain will come to Saudi.”

However, on Thursday night, the Minister of Culture and Information said Khatib’s opera plans were an infringement of the role of the General Authority for Culture, a separate government body, the Saudi Press Agency said.

Economic hopes

The entertainment plans are largely motivated by economics, part of a reform program to diversify the economy away from oil and create jobs for young Saudis.

The Vision 2030 plan aims to increase household spending on cultural and entertainment events inside the kingdom to 6 percent by 2030 from 2.9 percent.

“We are bringing the most exciting and famous events to Saudi Arabia this year,” Khatib told Reuters in an interview, adding that state-sponsored entertainment events would be staged in 56 cities.

“We are creating new local events with local content,” he said. “Almost 80 percent of the calendar [events] are for families.”

Saudi Arabia lifted a 35-year ban on cinemas late last year, with plans for regional and global chains to open more than 300 movie theaters by 2030. The first cinemas are expected to start showing films in March.

Last year, the country announced plans to develop resorts on some 50 islands off the Red Sea coast and an entertainment city south of Riyadh featuring golf courses, car racing tracks and a Six Flags theme park.
…

The European Central Bank has set a deadline of Friday for Latvia’s third-largest bank to plug a financing hole, the country’s finance minister said, as the Baltic state faced its worst financial difficulties in almost a decade.

Earlier, ABLV said it had asked for a 480 million euro ($591 million) emergency loan from the country’s central bank as part of efforts to reopen for business after being forced to halt all payments in the face of money laundering accusations.

The request for credit comes amid frantic efforts by ABLV’s management to keep the bank afloat after U.S. authorities singled it out for money laundering and moved to block it from doing financial deals in dollars.

ABLV has denied any such wrongdoing. “We want to give an opportunity … for the bank to ensure its short-term liquidity, so that it can continue operating,” the Baltic state’s finance minister, Dana Reizniece-Ozola, told a news website, Delfi.lv.

The ECB has imposed a moratorium stopping savers withdrawing their funds or making payments. It declined to comment about the deadline.

In an interview with Reuters, a senior ABLV executive appealed for the group to be spared closure.

“We believe that the bank has a future, on the basis of a substantially reduced business,” Vadims Reinfelds, deputy chief executive, said.

“What we are looking for here is a medium term or even longer term solution. If that is not possible, then resolution is the alternative,” he said, referring to a possible winding down. “The business can be restructured without resolution,” Reinfelds said, adding the bank was solvent.

He warned the bank was “systemic” — a reference to its significance for the financial system and an indication that its problems could spill over to affect others.

The finance minister, however, played down such concerns.

The crisis at ABLV comes alongside a separate police investigation into whether the head of Latvia’s central bank took a bribe of more than 100,000 euros.

Ilmars Rimsevics has dismissed the allegations and said he is the victim of a smear campaign, while the Ministry of Defense has suggested that disinformation may be to blame.

The ministry did not say who was behind this but drew parallels with campaigns before the U.S. elections in 2016. Russia has denied it was behind those campaigns and says it does not meddle in elections in the West.

The episode has cast a shadow over Latvia, which belongs to the euro zone and whose top officials hold influential posts both at the European Commission and European Central Bank.

Experts have said the events raise questions about the ECB, which is responsible for supervision of ABLV and other banks around the euro zone. The ECB has said it is not its responsibility to police money laundering.

Latvia was one of the hardest hit countries in the global financial crisis, falling into recession as the government sought an international bailout, nationalized Parex Bank and made spending cuts amid a wave of emigration.

($1 = 0.8141 euros)

Reporting by John O’Donnell and Gederts Gelzis.
…

Afghanistan will host leaders from Turkmenistan, Pakistan and India on Friday for the ground-breaking ceremony of the Afghan section of a much-delayed multi-billion dollar gas pipeline connecting the four nations.

The $10 billion mega project, known as Turkmenistan-Pakistan-Afghanistan-India, or TAPI, will connect Central Asia with South Asia and is expected to become operational this year.

The 1,814-kilometer pipeline will carry an estimated 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually for the next 30 years from the world’s fourth-largest reserves in Turkmenistan.

Officials say India and Pakistan would buy around 14 billion cubic meters each, while the remaining five billion would go to Afghanistan.

Friday’s inaugural ceremony will take place in the western Afghan city of Herat where President Ashraf Ghani, his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and India’s Minister of State for External Affairs MJ Akbar will be in attendance.

Turkmenistan launched construction of its section of the pipeline in December 2015.

Pakistan’s relations with Afghanistan and India have since deteriorated over allegations Islamabad is not doing enough to stop terrorist groups from using its soil for attacks against the neighboring countries.Pakistani officials deny the charges.

But despite the tensions, energy-deficient India is showing renewed interest in TAPI and pushing for its operationalization, according to Indian media reports.

“Today, given the energy requirements in India, there are several gas pipeline proposals before us. We are, however, strongly committed to TAPI pipeline project,” Akbar was quoted as saying.

The project is more than the sum of four nations’ interests and creates a benchmark for regional cooperation, he added during an implementation committee meeting in Turkmenistan.

Economic milestone

The Afghan government and business community also see the pipeline as a milestone in the war-shattered country’s economic development. Kabul is expected to earn up to $500 annually in transit duties and the project will help create as many as 25,000 jobs, local media quoted Afghan analysts.

The pipeline mostly runs through parts of southwestern Afghanistan where the Taliban insurgency controls or influences many districts. But a spokesman for the insurgent group, Zabihullah Mujahid, says it supports the project and will ensure the pipeline’s protection.

Herat Governor Mohammad Asif Rahimi told VOA the Afghan and Turkmen presidents will additionally inaugurate work on the construction of a railway link between the two countries, as well as fiber optic connection along the TAPI route.
…

South Korea’s cryptocurrency industry is anticipating much better times as the market regulator changes tack from its tough stance on the virtual coin trade, promising instead to help promote blockchain technology.

The regulator said Tuesday that it hopes to see South Korea — which has become a hub for cryptocurrency trade — normalize the virtual coin business in a self-regulatory environment.

“The whole world is now framing the outline [for cryptocurrency] and therefore [the government] should rather work more on normalization than increasing regulation,” Choe Heung-sik, chief of South Korea’s Finance Supervisory Service (FSS), told reporters.

FSS has been leading the government’s regulation of cryptocurrency trading as part of a task force.

Cryptocurrency operators have drawn a new optimism from Choe’s comments, seeing them clearly indicating the government’s cooperation in their plans for self-regulation.

“Though the government and the industry have not yet reached a full agreement, the fact that the regulator himself made clear the government’s stance on cooperation is a positive sign for the markets,” said Kim Haw-joon of the Korea Blockchain Association.

Wednesday’s news is a stark reversal of the justice minister’s warnings in January that the government was considering shutting down local cryptocurrency exchanges, throwing the market into turmoil.

Instead, South Korea banned the use of anonymous bank accounts for virtual coin trading as of January 30 to stop cryptocurrencies being used in money laundering and other crimes.

Bitcoin, the world’s most heavily traded cryptocurrency, is now changing hands at a three-week high of $11,086 on the Luxembourg-based Biststamp exchange after falling as low as $5,920.72 in early February.

South Korean electronics giant Samsung has already started production of cryptocurrency mining technologies, local media reported in January.
…

South Korea said on Wednesday it is signing free trade agreements with five Central American nations aimed at boosting market access for the Korean auto sector and electronics makers.

Trade minister Kim Hyun-chong will meet representatives from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama in Seoul on Wednesday to sign five separate bilateral pacts which will eliminate duties on about 95 percent of traded goods and services, Korea’s trade ministry said in an e-mailed statement.

The agreements are subject to parliamentary approval in each country, and is likely to take effect at different times depending on the ratification process.

The five trade pacts open South Korea to key Central American countries after its deals with the U.S., the European Union and China helped boost exports.

“The South Korea-Central America free trade deals will enable the countries to build a more comprehensive, strategic partnerships going forward,” Kim said.

The ministry expects the five deals to accelerate South Korea’s economic growth by an overall 0.02 percent in the next 10 years, by boosting exports of cars, steel, cosmetics products, and auto components.
…