S Korea opens gold trading market

South Korea launched a gold trading exchange for the first time on Monday in a bid to help counter the country's burgeoning black market in the precious metal. Smuggled gold is traded secretly through underground markets in South Korea and is used as an effective way to hide income and avoid tax. "The gold spot market will help normalise the unregulated circulation of gold," Shin Je-Yoon, chairman of the Financial Services Commission, said, vowing to step up a crackdown on black-market transactions. Of the country's total gold trading volume -- estimated at more than 100 tonnes annually -- about 70 percent is traded illegally, according to Shin's office. Currently eight securities firms and 49 dealers, importers and wholesalers are registered as members of the new gold bourse, according to AFP.