ING Life Korea workers to end strike

Unionized workers of ING Life Korea were to put an end to their near five-month strike later on Monday as KB Financial Group Inc., South Korea’s No. 2 banking group, withdrew its plan to acquire the local unit of ING Group, sources said.ING Life Korea workers started an indefinite strike in July, calling for better working conditions, which include job guarantees after a possible acquisition.The end came as the board of KB Financial Group turned down a company plan to take over the local life in

Dec. 24, 2012

KOGAS sees best share gains of 2012: Daeshin Securities

Korea Gas Corp., the state-run natural gas importer and supplier, had the best-performing stock of the year, according to a report by Daeshin Securities on Monday. In a survey of stock gains between Jan. 2 and Dec. 18 on the top 100 stocks by market value, shares of KOGAS, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas importer, gained the most, rising 82.3 percent. Shares of Amore Pacific, the nation’s largest cosmetics brand, and Orion, the second-largest confectionery company in Korea, followed, u

IndustryDec. 24, 2012

Study: Hawaiian island slowly dissolving

The mountains on Oahu in the Hawaiian Islands are dissolving from within under the slow but inexorable onslaught of groundwater, researchers say.Sometime in the distant future the mountainous tropical island will be reduced to a flat, low-lying island similar to Midway, scientists at Brigham Young University reported Friday.While external erosion is the primary force that wears down mountains, that's not the case on Oahu, they said."We tried to figure out how fast the island is going away and wh

TechnologyDec. 24, 2012

S. Korea's gov't debt nears 470 trillion won under new accounting rules

South Korea's government debt neared 470 trillion won (US$437.2 billion) in 2011 under new accounting rules adopted to reflect international norms, government data showed Monday.According to the data offered by the finance ministry, South Korea's ordinary government debt came to 468.6 trillion won last year. The ratio of the debt to the country's gross domestic product stood at 37.9 percent.The figures were calculated on an accrual basis, different from the existing cash basis accounting rules u

Dec. 24, 2012

Park opting against radical chaebol reform

Following is the second in a series of articles on President-elect Park Geun-hye’s key policies ― Ed.Revamping the conglomerate sector was one of main campaign issues among presidential hopefuls amid the widening profit gap among industries and irregularities by their mammoth business groups.Most candidates designated their proposed reform of chaebol ― Korea’s family-owned conglomerates ― “economic democratization.” While liberal candidates had pledged to overhaul family-owned ownership structur

IndustryDec. 23, 2012

KOGAS mulls expansion of stake in Mozambique field

The state-run Korea Gas Corp. said on Friday it is seeking to expand its shareholdings in a gas field in Mozambique to 30 percent from the current 10 percent. KOGAS CEO Choo Kang-soo told reporters on Friday that price will be a key factor for additional investment decisions in the Mozambique gas field. KOGAS found 10 trillion cubic feet of natural gas at one of four wells in an offshore block in northern Mozambique waters in October this year. KOGAS is also running a gas pipeline and operating

Dec. 23, 2012

Hyundai Heavy Industries wins 5 LNG ship orders

Hyundai Heavy Industries Group, which includes the world’s largest shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., said Sunday that it has won orders to build five liquefied natural gas carriers for $1.05 billion.Hyundai Heavy Industries, the group’s flagship company, won a bid from a state-run energy company in Brunei on Friday to build a 155,000-cubic-meter LNG ship, the group said.Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co., a unit of the shipbuilding conglomerate, also received orders on Thursday to build

IndustryDec. 23, 2012

Global sales of LTE smartphones to triple

Global sales of long-term evolution smartphones will likely triple next year, driven by South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. and its U.S. rival Apple Inc., a report showed Sunday. The report by research firm Strategy Analytics predicted that about 275 million units of LTE smartphones will be sold worldwide next year, which will be three times larger than this year’s annual sales estimate of 90.9 million units.The report expected that the U.S., Britain, Japan, China and South Korea wi

Dec. 23, 2012

Samsung’s share in mobile memory chips tops 57%

South Korea’s tech giant Samsung Electronics Co. saw its market share in the global mobile memory industry exceed 57 percent during the third quarter thanks to growing demand for mobile devices, a market researcher said Sunday.Samsung Electronics sold about 2.1 billion units of mobile dynamic random access memories up until the third quarter of this year, according to a report by market researcher IHS iSuppli. Its global market share stood at 57.05 percent at the end of the third quarter.The num

Dec. 23, 2012

Shares likely to move in tight range this week

South Korea’s stock market is expected to remain in a tight range this week with most major stock markets closed for yearend holidays, analysts said.They said the U.S. fiscal cliff issue will continue to weigh down on the local market but that a drop, if any, will not be too severe as the inflow of foreign investment continues to grow.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index closed at 1,980.42 last week, down 0.7 percent from a week earlier, as U.S. lawmakers and President Barack Obama fa

Dec. 23, 2012

Yongsan development on verge of collapse

The Yongsan International Business District Project, a large-scaled development plan in central Seoul, is on the brink of collapse, mainly due to a lack of funds and conflict among shareholders, industry sources said on Sunday.As of Dec. 21, the remaining funds of the Dream Hub PFV consortium, which leads the 31 trillion won ($29 billion) development project, amount to 6.5 billion won and funds are expected to run out before the year-end unless additional money is secured, the sources said. The

Dec. 23, 2012

Park to bring out underground economy

A key plank of President-elect Park Geun-hye’s fiscal policy is to bring out the underground economy into the open to help finance increased welfare spending.Several administrations since 1992 have attempted to get to the bottom of the nation’s underground, or shadow, economy ― the illegal, unreported, unrecorded and informal economy that is not included in the official GDP ― but failed. The tax authorities’ increased access to financial information is the key to successfully uncovering the shad

Dec. 23, 2012