00:03Korea's corporate bond market just hit its coldest stretch since the 2022 Legoland crisis.
00:10Top-rated three-year bonds now yield 4.486 percent, up from 2.899 percent a year ago.
00:20Mireille Asset Securities posted a 369 percent jump in quarterly profit, beating every major
00:26bank in the country. And President Lee just unveiled a state-backed push to make Korea the
00:33world's top quantum chipmaker by 2035. It's Thursday, August 13th. Let's get into one of
00:39Korea's top economic stories today. The Bank of Korea has kept rates elevated for months,
00:45and another hike could come as soon as this month. That's pushed AA-rated corporate bond yields to
00:51their highest level in years, even as global long-term rates in the U.S., Japan, and Europe
00:57climb in tandem. At the same time, Seoul is trying to fund next-generation industries while rebalancing
01:04who pays for local government budgets. Here's what the numbers show. Korea's top-rated three-year
01:11corporate bonds hit 4.486 percent on August 11th, up from 2.899 percent a year earlier. Bond issuance
01:20fell to 79.36 trillion won, or $56 billion, through August 12th, an 8.4 percent drop from 86.65
01:31trillion
01:32won, or $61.2 billion a year ago. Redemptions climbed instead from 65.37 trillion won to 74.51 trillion
01:44won,
01:44$46.46.2 billion to $52.6 billion, as companies leaned on bank loans over refinancing. Lower-rated
01:55bonds fell even harder. Non-prime issuance dropped 43 percent to 5.97 trillion won, or $4.2 billion,
02:05outpacing the 37 percent decline in top-tier bonds. Mireille Asset Securities posted 1.91 trillion won,
02:14or $1.35 billion, in second-quarter net income, up 369 percent, and topping Shinhan Bank's 1.30 trillion
02:26won, or $919 million. First-half profit reached 2.91 trillion won, about $2.05 billion, up 338 percent,
02:39driven by brokerage and wealth management growth. President Li's new SEED initiative sets a 2035
02:46target for commercial small modular reactors and world-leading quantum chip capacity,
02:53backed by a joint public-private company sharing early investment risk. The ruling party is also
03:00pushing to raise local government's share of VAT revenue from 25.3 percent toward 40 percent,
03:07a shift worth 15.6 trillion won, about $11 billion under 2025 tax terms. So what does this mean for
03:17global readers watching Korea's economy? Earlier, we said Mireille Asset just beat every major bank on
03:24profit. Here's what that actually means for you. Brokerage and wealth management, not trading,
03:30are now Korea's most reliable profit engine. And that looks like a structural shift, not a one-quarter
03:37blip. The corporate bond freeze, by contrast, still looks like short-term noise, tied to this rate
03:44cycle. But another Bank of Korea hike this month would widen the AA spread before it narrows. And the
03:51SEED initiative shows where Seoul wants long-term capital to flow next. Nuclear, quantum,
03:58and fusion industries global investors will want on their radar well before 2035. That's today's AI
04:06Prism Front Page Daily. This episode was produced with AI assistance based on Seoul Economic Daily
04:12reporting and reviewed by a human editor. AI Prism is a Juan Ifra award-winning series. We'll be back
04:19tomorrow.
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