More than 1 million millionaires live in China, their ranks swollen last year by economic growth, savings and a strengthening currency, according to a Boston Consulting Group survey. Millionaire households jumped 31 percent to 1.11 million in 2010 from the previous year, a BCG Global Wealth Survey released Tuesday showed. That puts China in third place for millionaire households, behind the 5.2...

SEOUL, June 1 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's consumer prices grew at a slower pace in May, but they were still quite higher than the government's inflation target, raising concerns that price hikes still remain a drag on the nation's economic recovery, a report showed Wednesday. According to the report by Statistics Korea, the country's consumer price index rose 4.1 percent last month from a year ear...

Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. will take part in a government-private research program to develop next-generation thin-film solar cells, officials said Tuesday. The program is one of the five research and development efforts to be pursued by the government and private sector up until 2013 at a cost of 700 billion won ($648 million), the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said. Samsu...

Hyundai Heavy Industries Co.’s first quarter revenues jumped 70.1 percent from a year ago buoyed by rising ship and construction equipment sales, the company said Monday. According to the regulatory filing, Hyundai Heavy posted first quarter sales of 12.7 trillion won ($11.8 billion), up 70.1 percent from the same period last year. The company’s operating profits for the period came in at about...

The China-based real estate developer Baitong Group will invest $70 million in a resort complex development project on the South Korean island of Jeju. According to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, Baitong Group plans to build condominiums on the southern island that will be sold to Chinese consumers. The Chinese company’s intentions were confirmed at an event held on the sidelines of a confe...

SK Telecom, the country’s top mobile carrier, announced Tuesday it would split its platform division and create a new platform subsidiary, which will be in charge of non-mobile businesses, as early as October. “The company has made the decision to build a new subsidiary to form business operation structures and business cultures that are a good fit to the two separate telecom and platform sector...

LG Electronics, the flagship unit of LG Group, is passing down its know-how for standardizing technology to African nations to help bolster growth in the region, the Seoul-based company said. The African Organization for Standardization and the chiefs of technology standardization at eight other African countries gathered at the standardization test lab in LG Electronics’ research and developmen...

The Korea Federation of Small and Medium Businesses has launched a probe into major retailers including Lotte, Hyundai and Shinsegae over alleged anticompetitive practices such as imposing unfairly high commission fees on dealers, it said Tuesday. The non-profit organization will investigate whether merchants selling their products through major retailers are being bullied with commission fees f...

Korea’s industrial output continued to grow in April, but its expansion pace slowed, raising concerns the nation’s economic recovery may be losing momentum, a government report showed Tuesday. According to the report by Statistics Korea, production in the mining and manufacturing industries rose 6.9 percent last month from a year earlier, decelerating from a revised 9 percent growth in March. O...

Ticket Monster, the country’s largest social commerce firm, said Tuesday the company would launch its first overseas business in Malaysia in its first step into the market there. Daniel Shin, CEO and co-founder of Ticket Monster, said it recently acquired Everyday.com, which is a leading social shopping site in Malaysia. Malaysia was chosen because Ticket Monster expects the market there to gro...