NEWS BRIEF

[Anchor Lead]

Officials negotiating a unified opposition candidate for the Seoul mayoral by-election have announced that main opposition People Power Party's Oh Se-hoon has defeated People's Party rival Ahn Cheol-soo to be elected as the winning candidate. This is the outcome of two separate public surveys conducted Monday on 3,200 citizens via mobile phone. Following the result, Ahn will notify the election watchdog of his candidacy withdrawal. Ballot papers on election day will still show his name but will indicate his "resignation."

Ruling Democratic Party's Seoul mayoral candidate Park Young-sun has also remarked Oh Se-hoon's primary victory. She said the race now boils down to choosing between the future of Seoul or an outdated, failed mayor who once served before. DP lawmaker Kang Sun-woo, who speaks for Park, also issued a statement and criticized the lack of sincere discussions in the process of unifying the candidacy or any consensus reached on cooperative politics. She said the opposition move has only further degraded Korean politics.

OECD data shows South Korea's business confidence has improved for the 9th straight month. OECD's business confidence index (BCI) came to 99.5 for Korea last month, up 0.3 point from January. The index measures business conditions for the six months ahead and figure below 100 means pessimists outnumber optimists. South Korea's index has been rising for the 9th month but is still below 100.