KRX to lose derivatives trading leadership

The planned merger of Deutsche Boerse AG and NYSE Euronext is to likely to deprive the Korea Exchange of the status as the world’s most actively traded derivative market. The KRX, the world’s No. 1 derivative market, took up 15.9 percent of the trade volume worldwide with about 1.78 billion transactions in the first half of 2010, the Futures Industry Association said. The German-U.S. bourse allian

Feb. 16, 2011

Daewoo, Samsung cement top posts in securities market

Daewoo Securities and Samsung Securities increased their dominance in the domestic market with sharp rises in profits last year.Operating profits of the Samsung Securities and Daewoo Securities in the three last quarters of 2010 made 37.63 percent of total raised in the industry, the Korea Exchange said Wednesday.Daewoo topped the list by raising an operating profit of 269.5 billion won followed b

Feb. 16, 2011

Mirae Asset seeks overseas employees, acquisitions

Mirae Asset Global Investments Co., Korea’s second-largest money manager, plans to boost the number of overseas employees by as much as 30 percent this year and acquire companies to strengthen coverage of emerging markets. Foreign hires in 2011 will mostly be fund managers, analysts and marketing personnel, chief executive officer Koo Jae-sang said in an interview, declining to say where the emplo

Feb. 16, 2011

Creditors to extend deadline for Daewoo Electronics sale

  Creditors of Daewoo Electronics Corp. have decided to give two more months to Entekhab Industrial Group to help the Iranian electronics firm finance a deal to buy South Korea's third-largest electronics company, sources said Wednesday.   Last November, state-run debt clearer Korea Asset Management Corp. (KAMCO) and other creditors sealed a deal to sell a combined97.5 percent stake in Daewoo Elec

IndustryFeb. 16, 2011

Samsung updates bada mobile platform

 BARCELONA, Spain (Yonhap) -- Samsung Electronics Co., the world's second-largest maker of mobile phones, said Wednesday that it has released the updated version of bada, the company's proprietary mobile operating system.   Samsung added a multitasking feature and mobile payment technology called Near Field Communication (NFC) and voice recognition functions to the second generation of its mobile

IndustryFeb. 16, 2011

S. Korean shipbuilders fall far behind Chinese rivals in Jan.

  South Korea failed to regain its status as the world's leading shipbuilding nation in January as it lagged behind China in key indicators, data showed on Wednesday.   According to London-based market researcher Clarkson Research, South Korean shipbuilders won a combined 356,398 compensated gross tons (CGTs) in new orders last month, while Chinese shipbuildersclinched a total of 1.07 million CTGs

IndustryFeb. 16, 2011

S. Korea's air traffic grows in Jan.

South Korea's air traffic grew last month from a year earlier as the global economic recovery boosted flight demand, the transportation ministry said Wednesday.   South Korean air authorities controlled a total of 41,845 airplanes flying in and out of the country last month, up 8.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.    This marked the 19

Feb. 16, 2011

S. Korean insurers' 2010 net likely to top 6 tln won

South Korea's life and non-life insurers are expected to post a combined net income of more than 6 trillion won (US$5.3 billion) in fiscal 2010 on strong sales and big players' impressive performances, data showed Wednesday.   The combined earnings of the country's 16 life insurers and 15 non-life insurers in the first three quarters of fiscal 2010 totaled 4.54 trillion won, according to the data

Feb. 16, 2011

S. Korea's jobless rate drops to 3.8 pct in Jan.

South Korea's jobless rate fell in January from a year earlier as the non-farm private sector expanded recruitment amid the economic recovery, a government report showed Wednesday.   The jobless rate was 3.8 percent last month, down from 5 percent from a year earlier, according to the report by Statistics Korea. But it was up from the previous month's 3.5 percent.   The number of working people st

Feb. 16, 2011

Korea aims to be world’s No. 4 fisheries exporter

Korea aims to become the fourth-largest fisheries exporter in the world by 2020 through better marine resources management and creation of large, globally competitive fishing companies, the government said Tuesday.The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said that the country will move to push up exports to $5.5 billion in the target year from around $1.8 billion shipped out in 2

Feb. 15, 2011

Daum 2010 net nearly quadruples

Daum Communications Corp., the operator of Korea’s second-most visited search engine, said Tuesday that its earnings almost quadrupled last year from a year earlier on increased ad-based revenue.Net profit reached 112 billion won ($99.7 million) last year, compared with 31 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing.Sales soared 44 percent on-year to a record 346 billion wo

IndustryFeb. 15, 2011

Korea ranks 5th in global auto production

Korea retained its status as the world’s fifth-largest automaking nation last year with over 4.2 million vehicles produced, a local industry body said Tuesday.The country’s five automakers produced some 4,272,000 cars in 2010, up 21.6 percent from a year earlier, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association (KAMA).China, the world’s largest market for automobiles, became the world’s

Feb. 15, 2011

Foreign investors see KT shares as ‘undervalued’

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Shares of Korean telecom giant KT Corp. are seen as undervalued among foreign investors, as Korea’s telecom industry is expected to further expand, boosted by smartphones, financial sources here said Monday.“Institutional investors in Hong Kong as well as in Singapore are looking into opportunities to buy KT shares, as they consider those shares are substantially underval

Feb. 15, 2011