Ahead of the lower court decision on the definition of ordinary wage involving Kia Motors as a defendant, the nation's car makers warned that they would move their plants overseas if Kia loses the lawsuit. The Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association whose members include Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors, GM Korea, Renault Samsung, and Ssangyong Motor, said in a statement, "If Kia Motors must pay an additional labor cost of 3 trillion won after the ordinary wage litigation, we have no choice but to c...

Kim Sang-jo, Chairman of the Fair Trade Commission, said, "Our commission will soon announce plans to stop the practice of large companies using technology of small enterprises without proper compensation." He held a press conference on August 13 at the Sejong government complex in relation to his agency's bid to root out unfair practices in the retail industry and said, "The biggest obstacle for small- and medium-sized enterprises for their further development is the uneven relationship with...

ZZQC International Business Group, China's major investment firm, will likely take part in Cityscape Korea 2017, the nation's largest international real estate trade show, signaling that it is moving into the Korean market in earnest. According to the secretariat office of Cityscape Korea on August 8, ZZQC will set up a booth in the Korea Economic Daily-sponsored exhibition and send five top executives to meet local developers and public agency officers. During the trade show period, the C...

Daehan Shipbuilding, a mid-sized shipbuilder in Haenam, South Jeolla Province, is seeing its order booking volume rise fast. During the first half of this year, the company won orders that exceeded twice the annual goal. Unlike any other shipyards that stopped operations of docks, Daehan has secured orders worth more than two years. It is also increasing hiring, which is rare in the shipbuilding industry. Daehan clinched deals of building 14 "Aframax" ships (115,000 metric tons) during the fi...

President Moon Jae-in said on August 15, "Another war in the Korean Peninsula must be resisted at any cost. Military action on the Korean Peninsula can only be decided by South Korea and no one else can decide to take military action without the consent of South Korea." In congratulatory remarks in celebration of the 72nd Liberation Day in Seoul's Sejong Culture Center, he said in relation to the North Korean missile crisis, "The government will do everything it can to prevent a war with Nort...

The Moon Jae-in government has decided to pay 100,000 won (US$88) a month per child younger than 5 years beginning in July next year. The basic pension payment of 200,000 won currently given to low-income (lower 70% of income scale) senior citizens older than 65 years will be increased to 250,000 won from April next year.  The additional expenses for these two items will be 13.4 trillion won for children's allowance and 29.5 trillion won for senior citizen pension payments for the next...

Samsung Engineering said on August 16 that it won two petrochemical power generation projects worth 550 billion won jointly with PTT Public Company Ltd., a Thai state-run oil company. This has been less than a week since the Korean company announced a large-scale oil refinery building project in Oman worth more than 1 trillion won. The project calls for building a petrochemical plant and an electricity generation plant in Rayong, Thailand's largest industrial city 150 kilometers southeast of ...

LG Siltron, a wafer maker acquired early this year by SK Group, held an extraordinary shareholders meeting on August 17 and decided to change its name to SK Siltron. Back in January this year, SK Corp., SK Group's holding company, decided to purchased a 51-percent stake in LG Siltron at 620 billion won and has since completed merger tests with competition authorities in major countries including China. SK Siltron was ranked No. 4 in the world last year in the 300-mm wafer area. The semiconduc...

President Moon Jae-in said on August 17, "The denuclearization bid by the current government is not so radical. It will take more than 60 years for us to reach that goal." In an interview in celebration of the 100th day since taking power, President Moon said, "The design life of nuclear reactors that were launched recently or under construction is 60 years. We plan to close reactors one by one as soon as their design life expires." His remarks are in reponse to criticism that his government'...

Hyundai Merchant Marine is pushing forward with a plan to attract an investment of up to 1 trillion won from BlackRock, the world's largest asset management firm. According to investment banking industry and shipping industry sources on August 20, the company is currently in talks with BlackRock to bring in an investment of 600 billion won to 1 trillion won. The investment will be made in the form of BlackRock taking part in a capital increase by Hyundai. Once the deal is successful, the equi...

Samsung Electronics said on August 20 that its Samsung Pay service has surpassed the 10-trillion-won milestone in payment volume within two years since launch. Introduced in August 2015, Samsung Pay exceeded the 1-trillion-won level in August last year. Since that time on, the service volume quadrupled for one year's time. An official with Samsung Electronics said, "The volume of out online transactions has taken off since last year, accounting for 30 percent of the total online transactions....

The volume of home mortgage loans made out by commercial banks is falling at a rapid rate after the government's measure to keep the housing marketing from overheating on August 2. According to figures made public by the nation's top-five banks including Kookmin, Shinhan, Woori, KEB Hana, and Nonghyup on August 21, the balance of home mortgage loans as of August 18 was 368,370.2 billion won, up by 1,834.3 billion won from the end of July (366,535.9 billion won). In monthly rate, this is up ...

LG International will expand its palm oil operations in Indonesia for the first time in six years. This is a move for the trading company to focus more on the food resource business. The company recently broke the ground for the palm oil plant. It plans to complete the construction by the end of the first half of next year and start producing 110,000 tons of palm oil a year. This is an increase of 30,000 tons from the current capacity. Back in 2009, LG International jumped into the food re...

The Thailand unit of Samsung Life, which has continued its presence in the Southeast Asian country even after most Korean financial service firms had withdrawn, turned to the black for the first time in 20 years. Samsung Life said on August 22 that Samsung Life Thailand's net profit for the second quarter was 340 million won. Given the Thai subsidiary is doing quite well in the third quarter, it is expected to post a positive net profit for the whole year. Back in 1997 Samsung Life establishe...

LG Electronics said on August 23 that it would establish an electric car parts plant in Hazel Park, outside Detroit, Michigan, by investing about US$25 million. The proposed plant will be built in a 215,000-square-meter site within the first quarter of 2018. The company will produce battery packs for electric cars, with plans to expand the line-ups to other electric car components in the future. LG explained that the locational decision was based on the proximity to the Vehicle Components N...

The household debt balance has rapidly increased to approach 1,400 trillion won (US$1.24 trillion) as of the end of June this year. It is estimated the balance may have surpassed the 1,400-trillion-won level by mid-August. As the amount of household debt reaches 90 percent of the gross domestic products (1,637 trillion won at the end of last year), economists began warning the high debt level may pose an obstacle to further growth.According to the Bank of Korea on August 23, the balance of house...

Hyundai Motor is currently in the works to develop a pickup truck model for the U.S. market. Michael O'Brien, vice president in charge of product planning for Hyundai Motor America, said on August 22 in a press conference, "The top management approved a project to develop a pickup truck model." Pickup trucks are highly popular in the United States. There is only one pickup truck model available in Korea, which is Ssangyong Motor's Korando Sports.Hyundai Motor unveiled a pickup truck concept mode...

This year's tourism balance of payments is estimated to surpass US$15 billion. This is up more than 40 percent of $10.8 billion recorded in 2007 in the wake of the global financial crisis. According to the Bank of Korea, the tourism balance of payments in the month of June this year was a deficit of $1.39 billion. The cumulative deficit for the first six months of the year has been $7.74 billion, the second all-time highest after the second half of 2007. Last year, the tourism spending by K...

The government will create 200,000 new jobs in the healthcare sector by 2022. Vice-Minister of Health Kwon Deok-cheol said on August 25 in a healthcare industry jobs discussion sponsored by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute and the Korea Economic Daily that the government plans to create 168,000 public sector jobs and 32,000 private sector jobs within five years from now. As for the public sector, he explained, the government will expand jobs in nursing and elderly care, as well...

A government study said it had injected a total of 168.7 trillion won (US$150.8 billion) since the 1997 Asian financial crisis as part of an effort to clean up insolvent financial services firms and has only recouped 115 trillion won as of the end of the second quarter of this year. This is the recovery ratio of 68.3 percent in 20 years' time. Even though it looks good in appearance, there is a big difference from that of the U.S. government. The U.S. government had spent $426.4 billion for...

Despite the record-high results, the R&D investment level of the nation's petrochemical industry is still miserably low. According to industry sources on August 28, the amount of R&D investment of Lotte Chemical, which achieved a record-high sales revenue of 7,849.4 billion won in the first half, fell short of 44.5 billion won. This is only 0.57 percent of the total sales. Even last year when the company posted the highest operating profit (2,547.8 billion won) among all petrochemical...

SK Engineering & Construction has won a large-scale petrochemical plant project in Thailand. The company said on August 29 that it clinched a deal worth US$210 million to build polyol plant within the Hemaraj industrial zone in Thailand's Rayong. This followed news that the company signed a $1.6-billion project to modernize an oil refinery in Iran earlier this month. The plant, located 150 kilometers southeast of Thailand's capital Bangkok, is commissioned jointly by PTT Global Chemical, ...

Global furniture and home furnishing company IKEA has earned 365 billion won in sales for the past one year in Korea. The company said that it would open a total of six stores in Korea starting with a second store in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, followed by Yongin (Gyeonggi) and Gyeryong (South Chungcheong) by 2020. Andre Schmidtgall, president of IKEA Korea, said on August 29 in a press briefing held in Bread Comma in Seoul's Yeonnam-dong that his company's sales revenue for the 2017 fiscal ye...

The volume of welfare budget set aside by local governments has surpassed the 50-trillion-won level for the first time in history to 53 trillion won (US$46.9 billion). This is 59 percent higher than what it was five years ago. According to the 2017 Statistical Yearbook published by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety on September 4, the aggregate welfare budget of local government for the first six months of the year was 52,601.4 billion won, up 6.2 percent (3,081.7 billion won) from the ...

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering signed on September 4 a contract to build five very-large crude carriers bigger than 300,000 tons with Hyundai Merchant Marine. The price tag for the deal is estimated at 470 billion won, with an option to build five more. At the signing ceremony, Daewoo Shipbuilding CEO Jung Sung-leep and Hyundai Merchant Marine CEO Yoo Chang-Keun were in attendance with other executives. With the latest ship orders, Hyundai plans to upgrade its fleets. Earlier ...

After phone calls with Korean President Moon Jae-in on September 1 and 4, Donald Trump U.S. President said the Korean government agreed to purchase American-made weapons and military equipment worth several billion dollars. The White House revealed the news on September 4 that in phone calls between the two leaders "President Trump approved in principle to lift the weight limit of missile warheads the Korean military can mount." In a September 1 announcement, the White House also said simi...

The negotiation to sell off Kumho Tire to China's Double Star Tire broke apart. The creditors including Korea Development Bank held a shareholders meeting and decided not to accept a request by Double Star to lower the price. A Korea Development Bank official explained, "As Double Star made demands we can't accept including an additional 10-percent discount from the original price of 800 billion won, we had to say no to the offer." In July this year, the Chinese tire maker began making dem...

Moon Jae-in South Korean President and Vladimir Putin Russian President met on September 6 in Far Eastern Federal University in Russia's Vladivostok to discuss issues including the current North Korea nuclear crisis and economic cooperation between Russia and South Korea for 2 hours and 40 minutes. The two leaders agreed that the North's nuclear tests are "unacceptable" but differed in how it must be handled including cutting crude oil supplies to North Korea. President Moon said, "When ...

The market value of LG Group companies has moved up to the third place after overtaking that of Hyundai Motor Group following Samsung and SK. Hyundai Motor lost out to LG after giving away the second place to SK Group in June this year. According to the Korea Exchange on September 6, the aggregate market capitalization (including that of preferred stocks) of LG Group's 16 publicly listed affiliates was 96,883 billion won as of the end of September 5. On the same day, the value of 16 publicly ...

POSCO Daewoo has opened Lotte Hotel Yangon on September 8 in Myanmar's capital Yangon. The five-star hotel, located near Inya Lake in the central business district of the city, consists of a 15-story hotel building (343 rooms) and a 29-story long-term serviced apartment building (315 rooms). POSCO Daewoo is responsible for the overall management while Lotte Hotels and Resorts taking charge of daily management. On the opening day, Myanmar Minister of Hotels and Tourism Ohn Maung, Chief Ministe...

As international coal prices are on the rise, Hanwha Chemical's prospect is getting brighter. That's because the Korean company uses naphtha to produce polyvinyl chloride (PVC) while its rivals in China are largely based on coal, which will make it more price competitive vis-a-vis the Chinese chemical producers. According to Korea Resources Corp. and chemical industry sources on September 10, the freight-on-board (FOB) price of bituminous coal out of the Chinese port of Qinhuangdao was US$95....

LG International Corp., Korea's leading general trading company, is set to kick off the operation of a cement factory in Myanmar for which it has invested for two years. This is part of the company's strategy to preempt the rapidly growing Myanmar market by becoming the first general trading firm to build a cement plant in the Southeast Asian nation. According to industry sources on September 11, LG International is currently making a pilot run of the cement plant in the erstwhile reclusive c...

Park Sam-koo, chairman of Kumho Asiana Group, will submit a self-rescue plan for Kumho Tire that includes the sell-off of Chinese plants to the creditors by September 12. In addition, he will sell off a 4.4-percent stake in Daewoo Engineering & Construction worth 130 billion won while asking executives to return their pays as part of the restructuring measures. An industry official familiar with the matter said on September 11, "Kumho Asiana will soon deliver to the creditors a high-inten...

Central bank governors of three East Asian countries including China, Japan, and Korea will get together and discuss issues such as debt and macroeconomic soundness. But the issue of the Korea-China currency swap deal which will expire on October 10 won't be one of the official agendas in the meeting. Bank of Korea Governor Lee Ju-yeol, People's Bank of China Governor Zhou Xiaochuan, and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will meet in Incheon's Songdo for two days on September 13-14 in th...

The youth unemployment rate has hit a record-high level in August since the Asian financial crisis. As for the number of net job increase, it fell to a low of 54 months. Even though the government is doing everything it can to create jobs, jobs-related figures won't budge. According to a report "August 2017 Employment Trend" published by the National Statistical Office on September 13, the jobless ratio of those aged between 15 and 29 was 9.4 percent, up 0.1 percentage point from a year ago. ...

The government is pushing forward with a plan worth US$8 million to help out vulnerable people in North Korea. Meanwhile it won't raise a lawsuit against China with the World Trade Organization in relation to the latter country's retaliatory measures after Korea's decision to deploy the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile defense system in its soil. Baek Tae-hyun, spokesperson for the Ministry of Unification, said on September 14, "We are reviewing a plan to give $8 milli...

The Daesan petrochemical industrial zone in Seosan, South Chungcheong Province, will transform into an advanced chemical industrial complex. The nation's major petrochemical companies may invest up to 10 trillion won in this area. On September 14, S-Oil, Lotte Chemical, Hanwha Total, South Chungcheong provincial government, and Seosan city gathered in Lotte World Tower and signed a memorandum to create a Daesan specialized industrial complex. Currently the area is home to large petrochemical ...

Private-sector power generators are complaining mightily about the government's pressure on them to switch coal-fired power plants they are building into ones based on liquefied natural gas. That's largely because the government is mum about the sunk cost and other costs to retrofit the plants estimated to be as high as 2.6 trillion won. According to private-sector power generation industry sources on September 17, the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy requested to POSCO Energy, SK Gas,...

International oil prices have hit a record high in seven months as they went up over US$50 a barrel. The domestic oil refining sector raised its hopes of improving their profitability in the third quarter after suffering poor results for two consecutive quarters. The spot price for Dubai crude as compiled by the Korea National Oil Corp. was $53.64 a barrel on September 16, up by 7 cents from the previous day. This is the highest level since February this year when the figure was $54.39. ...

Chief executives of the nation's leading companies like Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and LG Display have made a request to the government to relieve the problem of labor shortage in the area of semiconductor and display. Kwon Oh-hyun, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, said on September 18 in a discussion session held in Kensington Hotel in Seoul's Yoido presided over by Minister of Trade, Industry, and Energy Baek Woon-gyu, "Skilled workers are in short supply in fast-growing industries...

The approval rating of the Moon Jae-in government has hit a low of 67.1 percent largely due to North Korea nuclear issues. The rating has fallen for three consecutive weeks. As for the approval rating of the ruling Minjoo Party has declined for four weeks in a row to 49.3 percent. Pollster Realmeter said on September 18 that a survey commissioned by CBS-TV revealed that the ratio of those who thought positively about the way the current government has performed was 67.1 percent, down by 2.0 p...

MBI, a Korean manufacturer specializing in making transmissions, will build an electric car plant in Hanoi, Vietnam, jointly with local firm N&G Group. The two companies will invest a total of US$1 billion for the next seven years. The companies said on September 21 that the heads of the two companies signed an agreement to establish a joint venture called Viko Motors in South Hanoi next month. Earlier in June this year, MBI was promised by the Vietnamese government and the Hanoi city gov...

The government has decided to give support to North Korea worth US$8 million in programs helping its vulnerable people including children and pregnant women indirectly through international organizations. It, however, has not decided when to start sending money and exactly how. This is interpreted as a choice to deflect criticism that it is undertaking an aid project at a time when North Korea is causing an international storm by launching a series of missile tests. On September 21, the gover...

As the government pronounced illegal on the practice of companies relying on subcontract workers for a long time such as the cases in Paris Baguette and Mando-Hella, the whole industry in shock. This is not just restricted to manufacturers but is spread to services and the food franchise industry as well. The corporate sector expected on September 24 that companies like Tous Les Jours, Samsung Electronics service centers, and LG U+ will likely face the same problem any time soon after the Min...

POSCO, Korea's largest steel maker, has completed on September 22 the construction of a steel wire service center in Jeffersonville, Indiana, with an annual capacity of 25,000 tons. The plant will supply steel wire goods to be used for bolts, nuts, and bearings to auto parts companies. Started in April last year, the service center cost the company US$20.9 million to build. The high-quality steel materials produced in the new plant will be supplied to companies like Simplex Korea, Taeyang M...

As Korea and China are set to improve their relationship that was rocked by the controversy over the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missile system, Korea's tourism and duty-free shopping industries are raising their hopes of better days.The tourism industry believes that the Chinese government's group tour ban to Korea would be relaxed soon. A travel agency in Hebei posted an Internet ad recently for a group tour program to Korea in November at the price of 1,4...

Beachgoing is not just for the summer. Nothing is romantic than walking on the beach with a loved one. What about the beach in the autumn? Walking on the beach on a cool breeze and sitting in a café with an ocean view may be something you don't want to miss.   If you long for a place where you can see the autumn sea and uninhabited islands, all you need to do is take the Airport Train from Seoul station or Gimpo Airport station. Within one hour, it will take you to Yeongjo...