Most Popular
-
1
40 flights canceled on Jeju Island due to bad weather
-
2
Pandemic left Korea more depressed than before: report
-
3
Korean labor force to shrink by 10 million by 2044: report
-
4
N. Korea slams US, other countries for seeking alternative to UN sanctions monitoring panel
-
5
[AtoZ Korean Mind] Does your job define who you are? Should it?
-
6
Gov't appears to shelve punitive measures against mass walkout by doctors
-
7
Govt. asks hospitals to mitigate impact of medical professors' absence
-
8
Allegations surrounding BTS resurface, enraged fans demand apology
-
9
S. Korea's working-age population to dip nearly 10m by 2044 amid low births
-
10
Students with history of violence will be barred from becoming teachers
-
[Herald Interview] Korean startup turns leather scraps into yarn
The need to reduce humanity’s carbon footprint is a pressing issue in the textile, fashion and sportswear industries, and a South Korean startup has come up with a way for them to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. ATKO Planning gained attention in the global market relatively recently as the world’s first company to reuse leather scraps to produce yarn products. “The company’s technology helps reduce carbon footprints by reusing the sheer amount of leather that is dest
Nov. 29, 2021
-
Where did all the taxis go?
As the “living with COVID-19” strategy has opened up the economy, more people are now heading back to restaurants, bars and clubs. But while the streets are bustling and lively again, hailing a taxi at night has become a headache. Lim Bong-gyun, secretary-general of the Federation of Korean Taxi Workers, said many drivers employed by public hire taxi operators quit during the pandemic as they felt that continuing to work in the industry would mean working at a loss. “When th
Nov. 29, 2021
-
Daewoo Shipbuilding opens virtual training center for ship painters
Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. (DSME) said Monday it has launched a virtual center to train ship painters. The shipbuilder said the virtual training center will give painters the same experience as actual workplaces and will reduce costs. In addition to the heavy costs and time required to train painters, the current system also causes environmental problems due to the use of organic solvents, Daewoo Shipbuilding said. The virtual training system will cut costs and require l
Nov. 29, 2021
-
Retail sales up 14.4% in October on sales events, cold weather
Retail sales in South Korea surged 14.4 percent in October from a year earlier as more consumers opened their wallets amid various promotional events and cold weather, the industry ministry said Monday. The combined sales of 25 major offline and online retailers reached 13.6 trillion won ($11.41 billion) last month, compared with 12.01 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Sales from offline stores rose 10 percent on-year in
Nov. 29, 2021
-
S. Korea to closely monitor financial markets amid worries over omicron-sparked volatility
South Korea will closely monitor global and local financial markets for any impact from the emergence of the omicron variant of the coronavirus and take action in a preemptive and active manner, if necessary, to reduce market volatility, a senior finance ministry official said Monday. First Vice Finance Minister Lee Eog-weon made the remark at a meeting to discuss macroeconomic issues amid concerns that financial market volatility could intensify due to the spread of the potentially more transm
Nov. 29, 2021
-
S. Korea holds annual consultation meeting with S&P
South Korea kicked off annual consultation meetings with global rating appraiser Standard & Poor's Global Ratings (S&P) on Monday to discuss the country's credit valuation and economic outlook, the finance ministry said. The delegation, led by Kim Eng Tan, senior director of Asia-Pacific sovereign ratings at S&P, visited South Korea for four days of consultations through Thursday, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance. It will be the first face-to-face meetings between th
Nov. 29, 2021
-
Samsung Heavy ties up with Microsoft for shipyard digitalization
Samsung Heavy Industries Co. said Monday it has signed a deal with Microsoft Korea to cooperate on the digitalization of its shipyard. Samsung Heavy said it plans to build up a collaboration system among each shipbuilding sector in its shipyard by using cloud computing service Azure, artificial intelligence, group chat software Teams and metaverse technologies, which will be provided by Microsoft under the deal. Samsung Heavy said the latest deal will accelerate the digitalization of its shipy
Nov. 29, 2021
-
Seoul stocks open lower on virus worries
South Korean stocks opened lower Monday, largely as investors wondered how the omicron variant of the coronavirus would affect the global economic reopening. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) fell 21.9 points, or 0.75 percent, to 2,914.54 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. South Korea reported 3,309 new COVID-19 cases Monday, none of which have been confirmed as an infection from the omicron variant. Most sectors traded lower, except vaccine-related bio and medic
Nov. 29, 2021
-
Nearly half of hospitality firms marginal in 2020 amid pandemic: report
Nearly half of South Korean hospitality companies were unable to service their debts with earnings in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, a report showed Monday. The report from the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the lobby for South Korea's family-controlled conglomerates, showed 45.4 percent of firms in the local hospitality industry had an interest coverage ratio below 1 last year. The figure is up 11.3 percentage points from 2018, indicating those companies have been hit h
Nov. 29, 2021
-
LG Energy Solution lays out new funding plan for Michigan plant
LG Energy Solution, the batteries unit of LG Group, has laid out a new $1.36 billion funding plan to drastically ramp up the capacity of its plant in the US state of Michigan in the next three years. In a regulatory filing Friday, parent company LG Chem said LG Energy Solution's Michigan arm will raise $681 million in fresh capital without rights to add new production facilities to the Michigan plant, while securing the remaining $681 million from local borrowing. The new funding aims t
Nov. 28, 2021
-
Samsung ranks No. 1 in US high-end projector market
Samsung Electronics said Sunday that it ranked No. 1 in the premium home cinema projector market in the United States, a year after the electronics giant entered the market with its flagship The Premiere lineup. Samsung Electronics’ high-end projectors priced at $3,000 or more accounted for 27.8 percent of the US market by sales from January to October, the company said, citing an estimate from US market intelligence firm NPD Group. In particular, Samsung’s focus on ultrashort th
Nov. 28, 2021
-
Hyundai Motor reclaims No. 2 spot in Australian car sales
Hyundai Motor has reclaimed the No. 2 spot in Australian car sales, with its October car sales outpacing those of American rival Ford and Japanese rival Mazda, according to the latest data compiled by the market tracker BestSellingCarsBlog.com on Sunday. Hyundai sold around 6,200 vehicles in October in Australia, a 3 percent increase from a year prior. For the January-October period this year, its cumulative car sales reached 61,000 vehicles, up almost 10,000 vehicles from the same period last
Nov. 28, 2021
-
National pension is a mess no one wants to fix
Lee Hyeong-seok, 75, remembers when the national pension scheme was first introduced back in late 1980s as a state-backed insurance plan for post-retirement life. He and his friends, then in their early 40s, were initially unconvinced. At that time, bank savings carried interest rates of well over 10 percent. What’s the point in chipping in a handsome amount of one’s monthly salary to the fledgling pension fund? But persistent persuasion by a National Pension Service official led
Nov. 28, 2021
-
[Photo News] At full throttle
An LG Electronics worker is busy manufacturing washing machines ahead of a year-end spending spree at the firm’s factory in Clarksville, Tennessee, Friday. The company’s lines of key products such as washing machines and refrigerators are running full throttle 24/7 to meet soaring year-end demand in the market. (Yonhap)
Nov. 28, 2021
-
Brokerages' Q3 net up 10.5% on increased investment gains
South Korean brokerage firms saw their combined net profits rise 10.5 percent in the third quarter from three months earlier, due to increased income from their proprietary trading, data showed Sunday. The combined net profit of 58 brokerages stood at 2.52 trillion won ($2.1 billion) in the July-September period, compared with 2.28 trillion won three months earlier, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service. The gain was mainly driven by profits from proprietary trading, tra
Nov. 28, 2021
-
S. Korea's exports of farm, fishery products top $10b this year
South Korea's exports of agricultural and fishery goods exceeded the $10 billion mark for the first time this year, led by the popularity of "hallyu," the Korean wave of pop culture, data showed Sunday. Outbound shipments of foodstuffs came to $10.13 billion in the Jan. 1-Nov. 25 period, up 16.1 percent from the previous year, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. It marked the first time that exports of agricultural and fishery goods
Nov. 28, 2021
-
Seoul stocks tipped to be in tight range next week on COVID-19, inflation woes
South Korean stocks are likely to continue fluctuating in a tight range next week amid concerns about a rise in new coronavirus cases and the rising inflation pressure. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed at 2,936.44 points Friday, down 1.16 percent from 2,971.02 points a week ago. After a technical rebound on Monday, the key stock index lost for a fourth consecutive day Friday amid woes over rising inflation and a sharp spike in new virus cases. Investors took to the sid
Nov. 27, 2021
-
Fast-growing metaverse creates legal risks: law firm
The metaverse, a kind of virtual community that lets users interact in real-time, carries potential legal risks, and requires regulations to ensure platform operators protect their users from digital crimes, experts said Friday. “Since metaverse embodies the virtual world as almost exactly the same as the real world, there are concerns on severe privacy violations. It is highly possible that data on the users’ whereabouts, medical information and political affiliations could be lea
Nov. 26, 2021
-
AMAXG Group advertises its metaverse, NTF vision on the Time Square in NY
South Korean blockchain research company AMAXG has put up an ad on the Time Square billboard in New York, sharing its vision on metaverse and nonfungible tokens. The ad says, “AMAXG Group is in full support of technological innovation of metaverse in Korea.” AMAXG Group has recently announced it will expand its BizAuto Platform, a group of metaverse services platforms, consisting of three platforms -- BIZA-UVIT, BIZA-Metaversity and BIZA-CarnegieMall. It plans to add BIZA-Motors,
Nov. 26, 2021
-
BOK’s next rate hike could come as early as January: analysts
A day after South Korea’s central bank chief strongly hinted at another rate hike within the first quarter of 2022 following its decision to raise its base rate by 25 basis point to 1 percent, analysts on Friday projected the expected move to come as early as January. The BOK’s monetary policy board on Thursday carried out its second pandemic-era rate hike amid growing inflationary pressure and snowballing household debt. BOK Gov. Lee Ju-yeol in a press briefing explained that the
Nov. 26, 2021