Articles by Kim Yon-se
Kim Yon-se
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[Weekender] ‘Modisumers’ drive product innovation
From food to cosmetics, Korean businesses are increasingly taking advantage of a growing group of customers’ desire to modify products to their tastes and needs ― a group marketing analysts call “modisumers.” They have taken lessons from DIY trailblazer Ikea. The Swedish furniture maker has thrown out the conventional idea of buying ready-made products from a catalogue. Its customers partly assemble their own furniture and arrange it in various ways.Economists say that buyers of Ikea couches or
Industry April 18, 2014
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[Weekender] Bomb shots evolve into cocktail culture
Korean drinkers may have a knack for making tasty cocktails.Ranging from the traditional boilermaker, which is dubbed poktanju, to trendy cocktails more recently, a large proportion of popular alcoholic beverages here are mixed liquors. More businesses are also moving quickly to take advantage of the long-standing unique drinking culture.“In Korea, a liquor product can be successful only when it tastes good mixed with other liquors or beverages,” said an official of Mackiss, a high-end soju bran
Industry April 18, 2014
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[Weekender] DIY beauty products
Cosmetic blogger Choi Eun-ji makes a face mist using leftover toner that’s been sitting on her dressing table for months. Mixing it with purified water bought for 1,500 won ($1.40) at a pharmacy, she creates one of her staple beauty items at one-quarter of the price of face mists sold in shops.“I don’t need to worry about skin problems because it has fewer preservatives and made with the toner I’ve been using,” she said in an email interview with The Korea Herald.She is one of the beauty product
Industry April 18, 2014
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Shinhan staff illicitly access customers’ data
The financial regulator said Friday that Shinhan Bank employees had engaged in unauthorized access to customers’ accounts about 100 times.“Some bank employees were found to have inquired into accounts of individual customers including their families, which is a breach of banking regulatory rules,” said an official of the Financial Supervisory Service.He said there were more than 100 instances of irregular access at Shinhan Bank, adding that rule-violators would be subject to sanctions.The miscon
April 18, 2014
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Shares exceed 2,000 on auto, tech rallies
South Korean stocks breached the 2,000-point level on Friday, breaking their five-session losing streak as foreign and institutional investors swooped on auto and tech shares in hopes of improved first-quarter earnings, analysts said. The South Korean won rose against the U.S. dollar.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 12.23 points, or 0.61 percent, to 2,004.28, breaking the 2,000-point level for the first time in five sessions since April 10 when it hit 2,008.61. Trading volume
Industry April 18, 2014
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Hyundai eyes global green car market
Hyundai Motor Co. is gearing up to seize a chunk of the steadily growing eco-friendly vehicle market that by 2020 is expected to have grown a stellar 360 percent.The carmaker, the flagship of the world‘s fifth-largest automotive conglomerate Hyundai Motor Group, on Thursday detailed to the media its plans for fuel cell electric vehicles at a showing for a version of the Tucson that the company says is the only mass-produced FCEV in the world to date.On Friday, the company went further to commit
Industry April 18, 2014
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Vocational education eyed as remedy for youth unemployment
The Finance Ministry announced Tuesday that it would provide young jobseekers with more opportunities by benchmarking the Switzerland-based vocational education system.While the Swiss apprenticeship features classes one or two days per week and vocational training for three or four days at enterprises, the government said it plans to introduce the system in 2015 by modifying it in consultation with the business sector.In Korea, students aged between 16 and 24 are likely to benefit from the lates
April 15, 2014
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Regulator resumes probe into Woori Bank
The financial regulator has resumed its scrutiny into Woori Bank’s Tokyo branch over its alleged illicit lending in exchange for kickbacks or the possible creation of slush funds.The probe will continue despite the recent weeklong suspension after a former executive of the overseas branch was found dead in an apparent suicide during the inspection process, officials at the Financial Supervisory Service said Monday.The FSS has been looking into whether former senior executives at the Tokyo branch
April 14, 2014
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Gap widening between GDP growth, sentiment
The Bank of Korea’s recent data showed that the gap between the nation’s overall economic growth and ordinary people’s sentiments is likely to widen in 2014.The central bank has been unveiling an adjusted gross domestic product by taking the employment factor into consideration in a bid to measure the disparity between the conventional index and real public sentiment.In its latest announcement over the yearly economic outlook, the central bank forecast that the economy would grow 4 percent this
April 13, 2014
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Regulator steps up probe into banks’ irregularities
The chief of the nation’s top financial watchdog on Wednesday admitted a supervision failure in his comments on a series of irregularities revealed in the local financial sector over the past few months. In his policy briefing to the National Assembly, Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Choi Soo-hyun mentioned the recent string of financial mishaps and scandals including illicit lending and massive data leaks. In addition to ethical misconduct on the part of the employees and lax internal contro
April 9, 2014
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KB seeks to acquire brokerage, insurance firms
KB Financial Group has embarked on a policy to reinforce its nonbanking units, focusing on a group of auction targets in the merger and acquisition market.Under the initiative of its chairman Lim Young-rok, the group is seeking to diversify its earnings portfolio to overcome its reliance on first-tier banking.“Our nonbanking businesses lag behind several competitors. We plan to participate in the coming bids for stock brokerage houses or insurance firms,” said a group spokesman.He stressed that
April 9, 2014
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Seoul’s deregulation plan faces provincial backlash
Some ruling party lawmakers on Monday expressed worries over the government’s latest plans to ease or lift regulations on investment in Seoul and its satellite cities. The skeptical position taken by some of the Saenuri Party lawmakers on deregulating the country’s largest metropolitan area came during the National Assembly’s interpellation session on the economy sector.While Saenuri Party said it supports the Finance Ministry’s deregulation target involving both the Seoul metropolitan area and
April 7, 2014
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Dongbu pressured to sell subsidiaries
As the liquidity of Dongbu Group, a South Korean conglomerate providing steel, insurance and electronics goods, is worsening, creditors have put an ultimatum on the debt-saddled conglomerate to swiftly sell some business units amid a liquidity crisis.Despite a series of warnings in the market, Dongbu chairman Kim Jun-ki has continued to argue since last year that its financial status was not as critical as those of the embattled STX and Tong Yang groups, most of whose units are in the debt-resch
April 4, 2014
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Constructors fined W99b for waterway cartel
The Fair Trade Commission on Thursday imposed collective fines totaling 99 billion won ($90 million) on 11 major builders for their cartel during the bidding process for the Ara Waterway between 2008 and 2009.Further, the antitrust regulator said it would file a complaint with the prosecution against five incumbent and former executives of the six biggest players out of the 11 firms.The six firms were Hyundai Engineering & Construction, Samsung C&T Corp., Daewoo Engineering & Construction, SK En
North Korea April 3, 2014
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Korea mulls adjusting list of items subject to excise tax
Policymakers are poised to adjust the targets for a special excise tax in reflection of the changing consumption patterns, Finance Ministry officials said Wednesday.The excise tax, which is also called the special consumption tax, has been levied on items such as foreign premium goods and automobiles. It has also been a tool to discourage spending on items that may harm the public interest.“For an updated list, the government is closely benchmarking the cases in developed countries including the
April 2, 2014
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