Chang denies advice on corrupt investment in Busan Savings Bank The snowballing lobby scandal involving Busan Savings Bank is taking a new twist as two scholarship foundations threatened to sue an asset management agency, claiming that it advised them to invest in the failing bank. The private Pohang University of Science and Technology and Samsung Dream Scholarship Foundation said they would f...

Global investment banks forecast Korea’s consumer prices to increase more than 4 percent this year, citing sustained economic growth and high oil prices, data showed Wednesday. The average of inflation projections made in May by nine foreign investment banks, including Barclays Capital, rose to 4.1 percent from the 3.9 percent predicted in the previous month, according to the data provided by th...

Korea’s trade surplus shrank sharply in May from the previous month as imports grew at a faster clip than exports due to high international energy prices, a government report showed Wednesday. The country’s trade surplus reached $2.75 billion in May, compared with a $5.14 billion surplus in April, according to the report by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. Exports rose 23.5 percent on-year to ...

The fabricated cloning research by Hwang Woo-suk in 2006 remains a painful memory for Koreans, who had taken pride of their nation’s edge in a field that promised to transform medicine. No one agonized more over the fraud case than Park Se-pill, Korea’s top stem-cell researcher. Research in the area was brought to a virtual standstill as the government cut funding, studies based on human eggs we...

LG Electronics is used to being No. 2. A powerful global electronics brand in its own right, the Seoul-based company has not made it to the highest of peaks. This seemed to be all right, however, as long it could rub shoulders with its top-tier rivals. But a raging “smart war” in the mobile industry changed all that, and LG Electronics is in bad shape in that sector. Koo Bon-joon, vice chairma...

China’s manufacturing expanded at the slowest pace in nine months in May as the government extended a campaign to cool inflation and the property market, a survey of companies indicated. The Purchasing Managers’ Index was at 52 from 52.9 in April, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said in an emailed statement. The number was higher than the median forecast of 51.6 in a Bloomberg N...

SAN FRANCISCO, May 31, 2011 (AFP) - Ailing chief executive Steve Jobs returns next week from sick leave to unveil Apple's latest generation of software, the firm announced Tuesday. The 56-year-old cancer survivor will present Apple's new operating system, dubbed "Lion," at a developers conference in San Francisco on June 6. Jobs went on leave in January, his third medical absence since 2004, bu...

Royal Bank of Scotland also faces sanction from financial regulator Financial regulators have taken punitive actions against two European bank branches for their irregular trading of derivatives and plan to reprimand another Europe-based bank operating in Seoul. In a statement Tuesday, the Financial Supervisory Service said it has issued a warning against the Seoul branch of HSBC Holdings plc a...

Korea is poised to stimulate the market for solid gold rings as the popularity of the traditional first-birthday gift has slackened in the face of skyrocketing commodities prices, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Tuesday. Gold prices per “don,” a Korean measure equivalent to 3.75 grams, have surged more than four-fold in six years to roughly 230,000 won ($213), the ministry said in a state...

Merck Korea, the local unit of German-based Merck KGaA, is looking to broaden ties with Korean companies to spearhead new technologies for future growth, its president Juergen Koenig said Tuesday. The world’s oldest pharmaceutical and chemical group has been expanding its sphere into new fields such as electronics, biotechnology and renewable energy in recent years. As part of its growth strate...