Most Popular
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Tensions heighten ahead of first president-opposition chief meeting
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Seoul to provide housing subsidy to married couples with newborns
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New celebrity-endorsed therapy for face contouring requires only a pair of rubber bands
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Rapper jailed after public street fight with another rapper
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[KH Explains] No more 'Michael' at Kakao Games
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Woman gets suspended term for injuring boyfriend with knife
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Nominee for chief of anti-corruption body pledges 'independence, effectiveness'
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Med schools expect 1,500+ new admission slots next year
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Samsung chief bolsters ties with Germany’s Zeiss
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KT launches new mobile plans for foreign residents
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Hanwha enjoys operating profit jump of 186% in Q1
Hanwha Group, the seventh-largest conglomerate in South Korea, said Friday that its operating profit for the first quarter spiked to 848.5 billion won ($751.6 million), up 186 percent on-year. The net profit also soared 343.94 percent during the same period to 819.9 billion won, largely on the back of the group’s disposal of unprofitable businesses. Its revenue slipped 11.23 percent to 12.8 trillion won. Hanwha Group’s better-than-expected performance was propelled by key affiliat
May 14, 2021
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Seoul stocks bounce back to gains on US rebound
South Korean stocks bounced back to gains Friday after the US stock market snapped a three-day plunge that stemmed from concerns about early post-pandemic inflation. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 31.21 points, or 1 percent, to close at 3,153.32 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 822 million shares worth some 14.2 trillion won ($12.6 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 506 to 343. Foreigners sold a net 4
May 14, 2021
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CJ Group joins other companies in offering paid vaccination leave
South Korea‘s food and entertainment conglomerate CJ Group said Friday it will start offering paid leave of up to three days to employees who get vaccinated for COVID-19. Including the day of vaccination, two more paid days off will be provided for each of the two shots and an additional day to those who experience symptoms from vaccination. “After a staff meeting last week where opinions on vaccine leave were heard, we decided to take on board those that are in the best interests
May 14, 2021
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Hyundai, Kia to suspend plants next week on chip shortages
Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Corp. said Friday they will suspend some of their assembly lines for several days next week due to semiconductor shortages. Hyundai Motor plans to halt the No. 5 Ulsan plant, which produces the Tucson sport utility vehicle and the Nexo hydrogen fuel-cell electric vehicle, from Monday to Tuesday and the No. 3 Ulsan plant that produces the Avante compact and the Venue subcompact on Tuesday, a company spokesman said. Hyundai suspended the No. 1 Ulsan plant
May 14, 2021
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Samsung Biologics says nothing decided on Moderna vaccine production
Samsung Biologics, a biopharmaceutical unit of South Korea's top conglomerate Samsung Group, said Friday that it has not been decided yet whether it will manufacture Moderna Inc.'s COVID-19 vaccines here. A slew of local newspapers reported that Samsung Biologics is close to signing a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) contract to manufacture the US drug firm's mRNA vaccine against the novel coronavirus at plants in Songdo, west of Incheon. "Nothing has been decided yet," Sams
May 14, 2021
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VIG Partners acquires hair & body care firm
South Korea’s buyout fund VIG Partners said Friday it had taken over a 100 percent stake in Seoul-based hair & body care product maker The Skin Factory, known for its flagship brand Kundal, for roughly over 150 billion won ($132.7 million). VIG Partners, overseeing 3.8 trillion won in assets, said it had named Roh Hyun-jun, senior director of overseas and export business at personal care manufacturer Yuhan-Kimberly, as the portfolio company’s new chief executive officer. The S
May 14, 2021
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Domestic demand on mild improvement track: finance ministry
South Korea's domestic demand is gradually improving as a slump in the service sector caused by the pandemic has eased, the finance ministry said Friday. In its monthly economic assessment report, the ministry presented a more positive assessment about private consumption than the previous month, when it said a slump in domestic demand has gradually eased. "The manufacturing sector and investment have continued to improve on the back of robust exports, and domestic demand is on a mild imp
May 14, 2021
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S. Korea's logic chip capacity to further shrink as US expands: report
South Korea's capacity share in the advanced logic chip market is likely to decline further down the road, a report showed Friday, as the United States pushes to beef up its presence by attracting more global semiconductor firms to build factories on its turf. South Korea was expected to represent 20 percent of global wafer capacity of 10-nanometer (nm) and below nodes this year to rank second in the sector, but its share was projected to decline to 19 percent in 2025 and 17 percent in 2027 to
May 14, 2021
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Koramco buys Coupang cold chain warehouse in Korea’s largest REIT deal
Koramco REITs & Trust said Friday its real estate investment trust has closed its acquisition of a cold chain logistics warehouse tenanted by Nasdaq-listed e-commerce giant Coupang for roughly 360 billion won ($318.5 million) in the western port city of Incheon. The deal marks the biggest single logistics asset to be purchased by a REIT in the country by transaction size so far, the real estate investing subsidiary of clothing firm LF said. The warehouse, TJ Logistics Center, is a seven-s
May 14, 2021
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[Graphic News] Consumption expenditures on tourism and leisure hit hard by COVID-19
Consumption expenditures in South Korea's tourism and leisure sector decreased by more than 20 percent last year due to the coronavirus pandemic, a state-funded think tank said . In particular, foreigners’ spending in the domestic tourism and leisure sector plunged by nearly 80 percent and the travel industry was hit hardest among the relevant industries, the Korea Culture and Tourism Institute said. Last year, consumption expenditures in the nation's tourism and leisure industrie
May 14, 2021
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Samsung expands blockchain support on Galaxy smartphones
Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday it has expanded support for blockchain users trading virtual assets on its Galaxy smartphones amid rising interest in cryptocurrencies. The South Korean tech said its latest update will allow users to easily manage their transactions by importing their virtual assets stored on select cold hardware wallets to the Samsung Blockchain Wallet available on most Galaxy smartphones. "Support for hardware wallets provides Galaxy blockchain with a consistent user
May 14, 2021
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Seoul stocks open higher on Wall Street rebound
South Korean stocks opened higher Friday after the US index rebounded from a three-day plunge that stemmed from concerns about early post-pandemic inflation. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) rose 21 points, or 0.67 percent, to reach 3,143.11 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.72 percent, with the Dow Industrial Average and the S&P 500 up 1.29 percent and 1.22 percent, respectively. In Seoul, market bellwe
May 14, 2021
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Govt. dividend income up 2.8% in 2021
The South Korean government's dividend income from its stakes in public companies inched up 2.8 percent this year from the previous year as earnings of some state-run firms improved despite the pandemic, the finance ministry said Friday. Dividend payments by 22 state-run companies to the government amounted to 1.44 trillion won ($1 billion) this year, up 35.6 billion won from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. The gain in dividend income came as the Korea Electri
May 14, 2021
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Hyundai Motor to invest W8.1tr in US for EV output by 2025
Hyundai Motor Group said Friday it will invest 8.1 trillion won ($7.4 billion) in the United States by 2025 to produce electric vehicles, improve production facilities and increase its presence in the smart mobility solutions area. Hyundai Motor Co., the flagship of the country's top automaking group, plans to produce EVs in its Alabama plant starting next year and its affiliate Kia Corp. also has a plan to roll out EVs in its Georgia plant, Hyundai Motor America said in a statement. Hyundai a
May 14, 2021
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Foreign investors turn to net buyers of S. Korean stocks in April
Foreign investors turned to net buyers of South Korean stocks last month, ending their four-month selling spree, data showed Friday. Foreigners bought a net 672 billion won ($594 million) worth of local stocks in April, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). Investors from Saudi Arabia purchased a net 56.8 billion won of stocks last month, while investors from the Cayman Islands sold a net 58.2 billion won of stocks, according to the FSS. As of end-April, local st
May 14, 2021
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Export prices up for 5th month in May
South Korea's export prices gained in April, marking the fifth straight monthly gain amid a strong recovery in exports, central bank data showed Friday. The country's export price index, in terms of the local currency, rose 2.2 percent in April from the previous month, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The reading marked the fifth consecutive month of an on-month rise. In March, the index rose 3.3 percent on-month. From a year earlier, the index jumped 10.6 perce
May 14, 2021
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Global stock markets sink as inflation worries mount
BEIJING (AP) -- Stock markets in London and Tokyo tumbled 2.5% on Thursday and US futures were lower after a jump in American consumer prices fueled worries inflation might drag on an economic recovery. Shanghai, Frankfurt and Hong Kong also declined for a second day, following Wall Street lower. Overnight, Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index recorded its biggest one-day drop in three months after US prices, exceeding forecasts, rose in April at their fastest year-on-year pace in 13 year
May 13, 2021
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MetaverseSociety announces MarX Project to deliver DeFi-NFT platform
David Doyeon Kim, CEO of MetaverseSociety, has announced the MarX project amid the increasing cryptocurrency and blockchain technology boom. The project aims to remove the unfair intermediate distribution system and build a virtual ecosystem through the DeFi-NFT platform for a direct trade between value generators and value customers. Although there were similar projects before, they failed to create a business ecosystem. MarX Project, on the other hand, began with a basic structure that can u
May 13, 2021
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Biotech firms could expand partnerships with US vaccine makers: reports
South Korean biotech and pharmaceutical companies could expand their partnerships with COVID-19 vaccine providers in the US, as an upcoming bilateral summit between leaders of the two countries could serve as a meeting ground, according to local news reports on Thursday. The reports said executive members of Samsung Group and SK Group could meet with Moderna and Novavax to discuss potential contract manufacturing deals, when they visit the US as part of a large-scale delegate that would join P
May 13, 2021
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[Behind the Wheel] Porsche Taycan 4S shows what EVs are capable of
After Porsche unveiled its first electrified sports car, the Taycan, in 2019, the automaker faced questions from car enthusiasts. What makes a sports car a sports car? Could a battery-powered car really ever offer the same thrilling ride as a high-performance conventional sports car? But after taking the Porsche Taycan 4S for a 350-kilometer trip in a mountainous region of Gangwon Province, this reporter was impressed. The car not only proved as capable as any sports car that runs on gasoline
May 13, 2021