Korean tech titan Samsung Electronics has been named Asia’s most popular brand for the ninth consecutive year, according to an international market report Friday. Samsung Electronics was listed top among 1,000 brands, according to the latest report by Campaign Asia-Pacific and Nielsen, which surveyed around 8,400 customers in 14 nations in Asia. Samsung Electronics was followed by Apple, Panasonic, LG Electronics and Nestle, the report said. Japanese tech firm Sony came in sixth place,

Japan’s exports to South Korea have plunged in the wake of its export restrictions, data showed Thursday. According to the Korea International Trade Association and the Japan Customs Association, Japan’s exports to Korea stood at 329.3 billion yen ($3 billion) in May, down 18 percent on-year. The figure is the lowest in 11 years and three months since February 2009 when it reached 32 billion yen. By Shin Ji-hye (shinjh@heraldcorp.com)

The South Korean unit of US tech giant Google Inc. has paid the local tax office 600 billion won ($501 million) in back corporate taxes, sources said Friday. Google Korea made the payment in January after the National Tax Service (NTS) slapped the penalty tax on the company for not paying proper taxes for profits generated in the country. Despite the payment, Google Korea has filed a complaint with the Tax Tribunal, which has yet to make a ruling on the case. The Tax Tribunal is recommended t

South Korea’s public pension fund National Pension Service unloaded its 0.6 percent stake in domestic game company NCSoft to acquire a 0.28 percent stake of nation’s top portal operator Naver, government data showed Thursday. According to regulatory filings, NPS sold off 54,438 shares of NCSoft on Tuesday and bought 452,938 shares of Naver on the same day. As a result, NPS’s stake in NCSoft fell to 11.82 percent from 11.22 percent while its stake in Naver rose to 12.84 pe

Hanwha Energy said Thursday it has won a solar power plant deal with 50 megawatt capacity in Spain. According to the Hanwha Group affiliate, it has signed a contract with Spanish firm GRS for the construction of the solar power plant in Seville, Spain. The plant will be completed by the end of this year at the earliest. The Las Naranjillas plant, equipped with 121,800 solar modules, is expected to generate electricity enough for 13,997 households and reduce 51,977 metric tons of carbon dio

Government to spend over 5 trillion won and relax regulations to boost the sectors

While South Korea’s tobacco market is expected to decline overall, the sales of heated tobacco products will edge up this year, a market research firm said Thursday. According to Euromonitor International, the Korean tobacco market reached 17.19 trillion won ($16 billion) in 2019. Of the total, 1.89 trillion won was spent on heat-not-burn cigarettes, which put the country as the second-largest market in the world after Japan. The industry tracker forecast Korea’s heating tobacco

South Korea's major cosmetics makers are forecast to have seen their operating profits fall nearly 20 percent in the second quarter from a year ago as sales at duty-free shops faltered amid the coronavirus pandemic, a poll showed Thursday. The combined operating profits of Amorepacific, LG Household & Health Care Ltd. and Aekyung Industrial Co. are estimated to have reached 319.2 billion won ($267.4 million) in the April-June period, down 19.3 percent from the previous year, according to t

Five bio associations in Korea and their 50-something member companies will discuss plans to support ongoing efforts to develop COVID-19 treatments and vaccines in Korea. The talks will be livestreamed on YouTube on Tuesday at 4 p.m. by the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association. The physical event will take place at KPBMA’s auditorium in Seocho-gu, Seoul. The Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization, Korea Biomedicine Industry Association, Korea Medical Devices

President says Korea stronger than ever despite Japan curbs, vows to go on offensive

Local corporate tracker CEOScore conducted a survey on changes in assets, market capitalization, performance and financial status of the nation’s top 30 conglomerates over the past 10 years. Samsung ranked first with 59 affiliates and 424.8 trillion won ($355 million) in fair value. The top six groups -- Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK, LG, Lotte and Posco -- remained in the first to sixth place, while Hanwha and NongHyup were newly listed in the top 10. GS and Hyundai Heavy Industries fel

The chief of the pharmaceutical group Celltrion saw the value of his stock holdings rise the most among the heads of South Korea's major business groups in the first half, data showed Thursday. Seo Jung-jin held 5.85 trillion won ($4.9 billion) worth of listed shares in group flagship Celltrion Inc. and other affiliates as of end-June, up 116.4 percent from the start of the year, according to the data from market researcher CXO Institute. Seo also became the third-richest stockholder in South

Celltrion, a leading pharmaceutical firm in South Korea, said on Wednesday that its new antibody treatment showed some promise in treating a mutated version of the new coronavirus in recent tests. The company said the new drug successfully neutralized the "G614" type of the virus. It was 10 times more effective in treating the G614 type than the original virus, the company said.  The test was conducted last month by the state-run Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Mid-sized shipbuilder STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co. called Wednesday on its unionized workers to stop their general strike.  The shipbuilder's unionized workers went on general strike starting on June 1, calling for a stop to six-month unpaid furloughs, which half of about 500 unionized workers have taken in rotation since June 2018.  Due to the strike, operations at the company's shipyard in Jinhae, 410 kilometers southeast of Seoul, are being suspended from June 17 till

The South Korean game industry propelled the nation’s content exports last year, clocking $6.9 billion, more than 10 times that of the music industry’s $640 million, according to a report released by the Ministry of Culture and Korea Creative Content Agency on Tuesday. The report noted that the Korean game industry’s exports grew 8.9 percent on-year last year, commanding 67.2 percent of the nation’s total content exports of $10.3 billion and topping 10 other industries.