Most Popular
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Korea enters full election mode
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Seoul bus drivers go on general strike, cause morning rush hour delays
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Immigrant woman stabbed to death by Korean husband
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Lee Jong-sup resigns as envoy to Australia
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Yellow dust engulfs S. Korea, advisory alert issued
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Official campaigning kicks off for April 10 elections
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S. Korea to boost support for single-parent families
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Court upholds jail term for man who attempted to murder ex-girlfriend
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Kia EV9 wins world car of year
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Korea misses out on global bond index boost
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S. Korea's contraband trade jumps 60% in H1
SEJONG -- South Korea's contraband trade shot up 60 percent in the first half of the year on a spike in tariff evasion and country-of-origin violations, the customs agency said Wednesday. The Korea Customs Service (KCS) said it detected and confiscated about 3 trillion won (US$2.3 billion) worth of illegal goods and unlawful transactions in the January-June period, compared with 1.9 trillion won a year earlier. Yet the number of contraband cases sank 28 percent on-year to 849 in the six-mon
Aug. 17, 2022
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Seoul shares open higher ahead of Fed minutes
Seoul shares opened higher Wednesday as investors await the latest Federal Reserve's minutes that will give them an idea of its future rate policy to combat inflation. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 6.71 points, or 0.26 percent, to trade at 2,540.23 points as of 9:15 a.m. The main index got a boost amid market speculation that inflation pressure is peaking, making a global recession less likely, analysts said. The Fed minutes will be available Wednesday (US tim
Aug. 17, 2022
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Korea develops core equipment for NASA’s space telescope
The Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute has developed core equipment required for the ground testing of NASA’s future space observatory project, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Tuesday. The state-run KASI has put together a cryogenic vacuum chamber for NASA’s project -- Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer, also known as SPHEREx. If successful, the project will mark the world’s first observation of the entir
Aug. 17, 2022
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Lotte chairman highest paid among chaebol leaders in H1
Lotte Group Chairman Shin Dong-bin was the highest paid among leaders of top conglomerates during the first half of the year, data showed Tuesday. Shin topped the list by receiving 10.28 billion won ($7.84 million) from six Lotte affiliates during the January-June period, up more than 2 billion won from a year ago, securities filings showed. He was followed by LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo with 7.1 billion won, including 4.85 billion won in incentives. Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-yeon earned m
Aug. 16, 2022
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DSME's net losses narrow in H1 on new orders
South Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Tuesday its net losses narrowed in the first half from a year earlier, thanks to increased orders. DSME, the world's No. 4 shipbuilder by order backlog, said in a regulatory filing that its net losses for the six months ending in June narrowed to 667.9 billion won ($594.5 million) from 1.24 trillion won a year ago. The company said it has received 6.67 billion won worth of orders so far this year, about 75 percent of
Aug. 16, 2022
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FSS chief vows probe into suspicious short selling, wire transfers
The Financial Supervisory Service will look into financial institutions that handled an unusually large volume of short selling when the local markets were jumpy, the watchdog’s chief said Tuesday, as retail investors step up calls for greater oversight over the practice they say leaves them outgunned by institutional investors. Individual investors have long complained that the bearish market practice that profits from a drop in share prices is not as rewarding as it should be as regulat
Aug. 16, 2022
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Kurly’s IPO plan to be decided next week
The long-awaited market debut of Kurly, operator of South Korean e-commerce platform Market Kurly, is expected to be decided soon as the nation’s bourse operator is scheduled to hold a final review session next week, according to industry sources on Tuesday. If the company gets a green light from the Korea Exchange during the session, it is ready to go public. Following a book building process, its share price will be decided. The issue is investor sentiment amid a lukewarm initial publ
Aug. 16, 2022
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SK chairman discusses global health commitments with Gates
SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won discussed shared commitments to global health with Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Foundation, SK Bioscience said Wednesday. According to officials, SK Discovery Executive Vice Chairman Chey Chang-won and SK Bioscience CEO Ahn Jae-yong also attended the meeting in Yeouido, western Seoul. The SK leaders and Gates talked about how they can cooperate to improve global health. SK Bioscience said the company and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation hav
Aug. 16, 2022
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6 out of 10 Korean businesses urge Seoul, Tokyo to reset ties
More than half the companies surveyed by the Korea Enterprises Federation, one of the five major business lobby groups here, said Korea and Japan should settle their disputes and improve economic ties, especially in trade, the data showed Tuesday. Conducted from July 27 to Aug. 2, the survey polled 207 companies employing at least 30 workers and 57 percent of them backed the idea, saying efforts to take advantage of new trade deals like the RCEP and IPEF should take place once the two countries
Aug. 16, 2022
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Samsung SDI sets up first R&D center in US
Samsung SDI said Tuesday it had set up its first research and development center in the US in an effort to secure technological competitiveness in the burgeoning market for electric vehicles. The Boston center, called SDI R&D America, will focus on developing new battery-related technologies in cooperation with local universities and startups that have been actively working on lithium-ion battery technology and other next-generation developments. The new US center follows the establishme
Aug. 16, 2022
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LG Energy Solution raises growth target on upbeat demand
South Korea’s top electric vehicle battery maker LG Energy Solution has elevated its sales target for this year, largely buoyed by an upbeat outlook for the second half. In its second-quarter earnings report in July, the company announced an upgraded growth plan, raising sales target this year to 22 trillion won ($16.8 billion), an almost 10 percent jump from the previous target of 19.2 trillion won. The company offered a rosy outlook for the coming months, citing new car launches by i
Aug. 16, 2022
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Seoul stocks up for 3rd day on expectations of slower monetary tightening
South Korean shares advanced for a third straight session Tuesday amid investors' speculation that central banks in major economies may tone down their monetary tightening after weak economic data from China. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) added 5.58 points, or 0.22 percent, to close at 2,533.52 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 389 million shares worth some 7.9 trillion won ($6 billion), with losers outnumbering
Aug. 16, 2022
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S. Korea to supply 2.7 million new homes by 2027
SEJONG -- The Yoon Suk-yeol administration said Tuesday that it will provide 2.7 million new homes nationwide over the next five years by easing regulations on redevelopment and reconstruction, as well as designating a group of locations as new towns for development. The first home supply plan under the Yoon administration was unveiled at a ministerial meeting in Seoul, whose participants included Minister of Economy and Finance Choo Kyung-ho and Land Minister Won Hee-ryong. Almost 3 in 5 new
Aug. 16, 2022
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Will battery subscriptions lower EV prices?
The government‘s new scheme to adopt battery subscription services for electric vehicles is drawing mixed reactions due to the high costs of battery swapping amid falling prices of EV batteries. The government plans to revise related laws to allow double registrations for an EV and its battery pack so carmakers or financial firms can run their own battery rental services for drivers, which is expected to drastically lower the purchasing costs for EVs whose battery pack represents u
Aug. 16, 2022
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S. Korean retail investors rush to overseas ETFs under bear market signals
South Korean retail investors have been bagging up overseas exchange traded-funds in recent weeks as the global stock market has been struggling under bear market signals, data showed Tuesday. Retail investors interested in overseas investments have added more high-return, high-risk ETFs to their portfolios, seeking to profit from the volatile global market. Of the top 10 overseas investments from local investors from July 13 to Friday, seven were ETFs, latest data compiled by the Korea Secur
Aug. 16, 2022
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Full-fledged succession looms after pardon for Samsung's Lee Jae-yong
Samsung is envisioning a change in governance structure as a presidential pardon has virtually normalized de facto leader Lee Jae-yong’s control over the nation’s largest conglomerate. Lee Chan-hee, chief of Samsung’s independent compliance oversight committee, told the press before the committee’s regular meeting Tuesday that it is “working to address the corporate governance issue” of Samsung, while declining to elaborate further on the proceedings. &ldqu
Aug. 16, 2022
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Antitrust regulator to prioritize addressing damage to victims of unfair biz acts
SEJONG -- South Korea's antitrust regulator said Tuesday it plans to focus on how to swiftly address damage to victims of unfair business acts, rather than punishing companies, in an effort to overhaul its law enforcement procedures. The Fair Trade Commission (FTC) also said in a policy briefing to President Yoon Suk-yeol that it plans to take stern actions against tech giants' abuse of their market dominant status or companies' collusion to fix prices. The regulator said it plans
Aug. 16, 2022
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Samsung unveils world’s largest gaming monitor
Samsung Electronics announced Tuesday that it has launched the world’s largest curved gaming monitor -- at 55 inches -- that wraps around users’ field of view to bring their gaming experience to the next level. “A curved monitor gives users a fully immersive experience if viewed from the distance of 80 centimeters, as a flat monitor would cover less of a user‘s peripheral vision,” Chung Kang-il, vice president of visual display at Samsung Electronics, said at a pre
Aug. 16, 2022
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Online lender K-Bank's H1 net hits record
South Korean online lender K-Bank said Tuesday it posted the strongest performance for any first half on increased interest revenue. K-Bank's first-half net income stood at 45.7 billion won ($34.9 million), far beyond the 22.5 billion-won annual net profit of last year and marking the highest first-half earnings since its launch in 2017, the bank's data showed. The online lender attributed the record earnings to more account openings, expansion in loan portfolios and diversified source
Aug. 16, 2022
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LG Chem to build bioplastic plants in Illinois with US food processor
LG Chem Ltd. said Tuesday it will build two production facilities in the US state of Illinois with a US food processing company to produce a biodegradable plastic widely used in food packaging. Under the two joint ventures with Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM), an agricultural food processor and biosolution company, they will build a facility to annually produce 75,000 tons of polylactic acid (PLA), in Decatur, the South Korean chemical company said in a release. A separate facility will be buil
Aug. 16, 2022