State pension fund cuts exposure to domestic shares in 2021

South Korea's state pension fund lowered its exposure to large cap and other domestic shares in 2021 in an apparent bid to boost returns and diversify its portfolio, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The National Pension Service (NPS) held stakes of 5 percent or more in 265 companies listed on the country's major and secondary bourses as of end-2021, down 10 from a year earlier, according to CEO Score. Compared with two years earlier, the number was down as many as 49. Last year, the state

MarketJan. 19, 2022

Housing prices to further stabilize on monetary tightening: finance minister

Housing prices are expected to further stabilize due largely to the central bank's rate hikes and the Federal Reserve's push for faster monetary tightening, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Wednesday. Hong also voiced concerns that home prices in some regions could show signs of unstable movements due to presidential election candidates' campaign pledges on large-scale development. "Housing prices have recently stabilized," Hong said at a government meeting on the housing market. H

EconomyJan. 19, 2022

Africa Finance Corp. secures new funders from South Korea, Dubai

Africa Finance Corp., which focuses on infrastructure across the continent, raised $400 million in a syndicated loan to bolster its balance sheet as the region seeks to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. The three-year facility, the first by the development-finance institution since 2018, was 2.5 times oversubscribed and was increased from an initial target of $300 million, it said in a statement on Tuesday. While the funds mostly replaced maturing debt, the fund raising attracted new lende

BusinessJan. 18, 2022

Korea Exchange decides to delist SillaJen

The Korea Exchange on Tuesday announced its decision to delist biotech company SillaJen, 20 months after the biotech company’s market transactions were stopped due to breach of trust and embezzlement charges. The stock market operator will hold a Kosdaq market committee within the next 20 business days to finalize whether it will push ahead with the delisting decision or give SillaJen a second chance at revival. Although the company can raise an objection to the market committee if it o

MarketJan. 18, 2022

After failed merger, Hyundai Heavy secures cash to nurture new growth engines

Hyundai Heavy Industries’ failed acquisition of its smaller rival Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering may be a boon for the nation’s largest shipbuilder as it has secured abundant cash to focus on new growth engine businesses such as hydrogen, autonomous driving and robots. Last week, the European Commission disapproved the merger plan of the two Korean shipbuilders over monopoly concerns. With the veto by the world’s largest shipbuilding market, Hyundai Heavy saw it

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

Staying in business for 5 years difficult for startups, self-employed: data

SEJONG -- A large portion of startups and the self-employed failed in less than five years while suffering from fears of possible financial insolvency due to heavy debt, data from Statistics Korea and credit rating firm NICE showed Tuesday. Their unstable status was found to have started years before COVID-19 hit the nation. According to Statistics Korea, the median individual startup stayed in business for just 2.6 years. The journal in which it was published conducted research on the operatio

EconomyJan. 18, 2022

Car exports grow 24.2% on strong sales of hybrids

South Korea posted $46.47 billion in car exports last year, up 24.2 percent from the previous year which was hit hard by COVID-19, government data showed on Tuesday. Export volume surged 8.6 percent to 2.05 million units, marking the first time in nine years to see exports rise in both volume and value. The country’s car production and sales volume at home, on the other hand, dropped 1.3 percent on-year to 3.46 million units and 8.5 percent to 1.73 million units, respectively. The Minis

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

Seegene exports 5.1m COVID-19 test kits to Israel

South Korea's molecular diagnostics company Seegene Inc. said Tuesday it has exported 5.1 million COVID-19 test kits to Israel. The company already delivered 1.7 million diagnostic tests last month and is scheduled to deliver an additional 3.4 million tests kits this month. Israel has recently experienced a shortage of COVID-19 tests amid the fast spread of the omicron variant and an unprecedented surge in new cases following the winter flu season. Seegene said its delivery of COVID-19 diagno

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

KT teams up with Russia’s Yandex to debut delivery robots

South Korean telecom carrier KT looks to launch autonomous delivery vehicles in Korea before the end of 2022 by partnering with Russian autonomous rover maker Yandex Self-Driving Group, KT said Tuesday. The two companies have signed a memorandum of understanding at a Yandex office in Moscow, and are at an early stage of cooperation to integrate KT‘s artificial intelligence and digital capability with Yandex’s self-driving technology. KT added the MOU, in addition to its launch pla

TechnologyJan. 18, 2022

Hyundai Motor’s used car market entry blurry after ministry puts on hold

Hyundai Motor Group’s launch of B2C secondhand car business has met with headwind after the ministry put a halt on the business launch temporarily, according to the industry on Tuesday.  The Ministry of SMEs and Startups last week advised the nation’s largest carmaker to temporarily suspend the launch of the certified used car sales business here. The advisory comes after the country’s association of used car dealership asked the ministry to intervene the automotive congl

MobilityJan. 18, 2022

Samsung unveils Exynos 2200 mobile processor with AMD’s GPU

Samsung Electronics said Tuesday it has teamed up with California-based chip maker Advanced Micro Devices to unveil its flagship Exynos 2200 processor chips for mobile phones, in a delayed announcement by a week. The partnership with AMD in Samsung’s processor business has boosted energy efficiency and graphic processing performance compared to predecessors like Exynos 2100, the company said. Manufactured in Samsung‘s cutting-edge 4 nanometer extreme ultraviolet lithography proces

TechnologyJan. 18, 2022

S. Korea's instant meals market skyrockets 145% over 4 years

The South Korean market of instant meals jumped more than 145 pct in 2020 from four years earlier on the increased number of convenience stores and the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Tuesday. Shipments of ready-to-eat items, known as home meal replacement (HMR) products in South Korea, came to 2.01 trillion won ($1.7 billion) in 2020, up a whopping 145.3 percent from 2016, according to the data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food T

EconomyJan. 18, 2022

Samsung registers robot brand ‘Samsung Bot’ in US, Canada

Samsung Electronics is expected to introduce household robots under the brand “Samsung Bot” in the North American market. According to the World Intellectual Property Organization on Tuesday, the South Korean tech giant recently completed a trademark registration of Samsung Bot in the US and Canada. Samsung Bot encompasses all types of applications including industrial robots, exoskeleton robots, robot vacuum machines, robot kitchen utensils, humanoids and server robots, the compan

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

LG Chem to reuse oil extracted from plastic waste

LG Chem will extract oil from plastic waste and reuse it for plastic production starting in 2024. According to South Korea’s leading chemical company Tuesday, it will establish a facility in Dangjin, South Chungcheong Province, where the plastic waste will be chemically recycled with extremely hot and pressurized steam. Once completed in the first quarter of 2024, the facility, with an annual capacity of 20,000 tons, will utilize the extracted oil to produce raw materials for plastic pro

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

Swedish EV firm launches Polestar 2 in S. Korea

Swedish premium electric carmaker Polestar on Tuesday launched the Polestar 2, its first fully electric, high-volume model, in South Korea to gain a share in the local EV market. The Polestar 2 electric performance fastback is equipped with a 78kWh battery and can travel up 417 kilometers on a single charge, the company said in a statement. Volvo Cars owns a controlling stake in Polestar, the former Volvo performance division-turned-electric car brand. The model with a single-motor powertrain

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

23 shippers fined W96.2b for collusion on freight rates

South Korea's antitrust regulator said Tuesday it has decided to impose a combined fine of 96.2 billion won ($80.7 million) on 23 Korean and foreign shippers for their 15-year-long collusion to fix freight rates. Since 2018, the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has been looking into allegations that the country's top shipper, HMM Co., and 22 local and foreign shipping lines colluded to fix higher freight rates for Southeast Asian sea routes. The shippers -- 12 South Korean and 11 foreign -- collude

EconomyJan. 18, 2022

Hyundai Capital launches joint venture to provide auto finance in France

Hyundai Capital Services Inc., South Korea's leading auto finance company, said Tuesday it has launched a joint venture with CGI Finance, a subsidiary of France's Societe Generale Group. Hyundai Capital France will provide auto finance, including lease, loan and insurance, for customers of Hyundai Motor Group -- Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp. -- and financing services for dealers in France, the company said. The joint venture is Hyundai Capital's 10th overseas financial entity and fifth in Eu

IndustryJan. 18, 2022

Seoul stocks open slightly lower amid inflation uncertainties

South Korean stocks opened a tad lower Tuesday, weighed down by persistent inflation woes at home and in the United States. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (Kospi) edged up 1.08 points, or 0.04 percent, to 2,973.56 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks came off to a lackluster start after the key stock index retreated for the previous three straight sessions amid jitters over the US Federal Reserve's faster-than-anticipated tapering and rate hikes to tame inflation.

MarketJan. 18, 2022

ABS issuance down 22% in 2021

The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) in South Korea shrank 22 percent on-year in 2021 due to declined sales of government-led mortgage securities, data showed Tuesday. The ABS issued last year were valued at 61.7 trillion won ($51.8 billion), down 17.4 trillion won from a year earlier, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS). ABS refer to securities based on such assets as mortgages, auto loans, credit-card receivables and student loans. The decline stemmed

EconomyJan. 18, 2022

Finance Minister vows to raise accuracy in tax revenue

SEJONG -- Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki has expressed his commitment to raising accuracy and transparency in generating figures on tax revenue, reiterating his apology for the government’s excess revenue beyond its earlier estimate. In his meeting with reporters on Monday, Hong said the Finance Ministry would “focus on raising transparency (in operation and forecast of tax revenue) as well as revising the calculating system.” If the coming calculation

EconomyJan. 17, 2022