Major business groups enjoy fast asset growth

South Korea‘s well-established business groups enjoyed stellar asset growth over the past five years while newly formed business groups experienced financial troubles, data showed Thursday.According to the data by research firm CEO Score, the combined assets of 18 conglomerates including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, LG and SK rose to 1,054 trillion won ($973.2 billion) at the end of 2012, up from 525 trillion won five years earlier. Their combined assets took up 67.7 percent of all assets held by 51

Sept. 12, 2013

Bow maker WIN&WIN eyes bicycle market

WIN&WIN, a domestic sporting goods company, is a leading player in the global market for archery equipment with 40 percent of the market share.The company led by CEO Park Kyung-rae, a retired athlete from the Korean national archery team, provided 52 percent of the bows for the 2012 London Olympics. It has also dominated about 60 percent of the Japanese market and is competing with Hoyt, its rival firm in the United States, to become No. 1 in the global market.  Utilizing the technology and tech

Sept. 12, 2013

Signs of recovery in shipbuilding industry

Expectations are elevating that the long-stagnant shipbuilding industry may enjoy an upturn amid an increasing amount of commercial vessel orders and the rise of freight charges.Industry observers, however, remained discreet and refrained from fully embracing the optimistic view.According to the Korea Maritime Institute, the Baltic Dry Index, which indicates the freight fee level of bulk carriers, recorded 1,215 last month ― 72.8 percent up from the same period last year.The freight fee index is

Sept. 11, 2013

POSCO unit launches power plant fueled by waste gases

POSCO Energy began operating a highly efficient and environmentally friendly “off-gas combined cycle power plant” in Pohang on Wednesday, company officials said.The station in North Gyeongsang Province has a capacity of 145 megawatts and is the first to produce power through mixed combustion of off-gases such as blast-furnace gas, FINEX off gas and coke-oven gas.Unlike steam power plants, the gas turbine and steam turbine in this station are connected together, helping to reduce costs. They are

Sept. 11, 2013

S. Korea's jobless rate stands at 3 pct in Aug

South Korea's jobless rate inched down in August from a month earlier and job creation also accelerated, raising hopes that labor market conditions are improving, a government report showed Wednesday.According to the report by Statistics Korea, the jobless rate stood at 3 percent last month, down from 3.1 percent in July. The jobless rate adjusted for inflation also fell from 3.2 percent to 3.1 percent.Job creation is picking up speed. The number of employed people was 25.29 million in August, u

Sept. 11, 2013

Korea’s trade policy straddles U.S., China

While the United States and China, the world’s top two economic powers, began adding momentum to their multilateral trade negotiations, it has become a key task for Korea to define its priorities.But it also faces the dilemma of maintaining the balance between the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the U.S.-initiated Trans-Pacific Partnership.“The government’s policy on the TPP is yet undecided,” said an official at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on Monday.“We

Sept. 9, 2013

LIG Nex1 to develop anti-ship missile interceptor

South Korean defense company LIG Nex1 broke ground Monday for a factory to build an anti-ship missile with indigenous technology with the goal of completing it by 2015, the company said. LIG Nex1 will work with the Agency for Defense Development to build the surface-to-air, anti-missile guided by an inertial navigation system, which will be deployed in the South Korean Navy’s destroyers, the company said. The missile, named Haegung (sea bow), is designed to launch from a vertical platform on a d

Sept. 9, 2013

LG to release latest tablet G Pad in 30 countries

LG Electronics Inc., the world’s No. 3 smartphone maker, said Monday that it plans to roll out the LG G Pad 8.3 tablet, the latest addition to its G Series lineup of premium mobile devices, in some 30 countries by the end of the year.LG Electronics last week unveiled the G Pad 8.3, which has the Full HD display. The tablet runs on Snapdragon 600 Processor with 1.7GHz Quad-Core CPU, which helps enhance the viewing experience with powerful performance, the company said in its release.One of its ke

Sept. 9, 2013

Banks’ foreign liquidity conditions remain sound

South Korean banks’ foreign currency liquidity conditions remained sound in June, the financial watchdog said Monday.The foreign currency liquidity ratio of local banks came to 107.2 percent at end-June this year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service.The ratio measures the percentage of a bank’s foreign currency assets maturing in three months or less to its foreign currency debts with the same maturity. The advisable level is 85 percent.Non-bank financial firms, including brokerage ho

Sept. 9, 2013

S. Korea's IT exports jump 11.4 pct in Aug.

South Korea's exports of information technology (IT) products rose from a year earlier in August, continuing their on-year growth for the 12th consecutive month, the government said Monday.Outbound shipments of IT products reached US$14.5 billion last month, up 11.4 percent from the same period last year, according to the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning.The country's trade surplus in the IT sector widened to $8.13 billion, the second highest in the country's history, as its imports

Sept. 9, 2013

Cigarette sales to hit record low

Cigarette consumption is expected to reach a record low in the first half of this year due to increased regulations against smoking and heightened health awareness, according to industry data.The consistently falling consumption of cigarettes is likely to further dent the bottom lines of tobacco giants such as KT&G, Philip Morris and BAT, market analysts said.Korea’s aggregate sales amounted to 89.3 billion cigarettes in Korea last year, down almost 1 percent from 90 billion a year ago.KT&G, Kor

Sept. 9, 2013

Pension lottery sales plunge in H1

Sales of pension lotteries in South Korea shrank by nearly half on-year during the first six months of this year as public interest in monthly payout seems to be petering out, government data showed Monday.According to the data provided by the finance ministry, sales of "Pension Lottery 520" came to 68.1 billion won (US$62.5 million) during the January-June period, down 48.1 percent from 131.3 billion won tallied a year earlier. The pension lottery product pays out prize money to winners in mont

Sept. 9, 2013

Radiation fears buoy sales of fish from far off places

Escalating fears of radiation-contaminated water from Fukushima has boosted the sales of fishery products imported from non-Japan areas, while the sales of so-called “domestic products” took a nosedive, figures showed on Sunday. Domestic products include fish that were caught in Korean waters in the close vicinity of Japan. The sales of imported fish rose drastically last month ― 56.5 percent for Norwegian salmon, 48.1 percent for Ecuadorean and Peruvian shrimp ― compared to last year. For U.S.

Sept. 8, 2013

S. Korea earns 'safe haven status' from foreign investors: experts

South Korea is getting "safe haven status" from foreign investors as its current account surplus and the accumulated foreign reserves are serving as defense against possible cross-border capital flight, experts said Sunday.South Korea used to suffer from massive foreign capital outflows whenever a financial crisis cropped up. But Asia's fourth-largest economy is now differentiating itself from other emerging countries such as India and Indonesia which are struggling to curb capital outflows and

Sept. 8, 2013

Flight attendants caught smuggling goods

Flight attendants were found to have continued to smuggle goods on overseas trips in defiance of strict regulations, the Korea Customs Service said Friday.According to the agency, there has so far been a total of 19 cases of smuggling this year involving flight attendants of both local and foreign airlines. The combined value of the goods comes to 44 million won ($40,200).The most smuggled items include designer bags, watches, cosmetics and jewelry, according to customs officials.Under the regul

Sept. 6, 2013

Hyundai Motor labor, management reach wage deal

The labor and management of South Korea’s largest carmaker Hyundai Motor Co. tentatively agreed Thursday on a wage deal, putting an end to the ongoing strike.During a new round of negotiations, the two sides narrowed their differences and came up with an interim agreement, which will be put to vote on next Monday. The agreement came after 25 rounds of negotiations over a wage hike and other labor issues that lasted for the past 101 days. Upon the beginning of the talks, Hyundai’s unionized worke

Sept. 6, 2013

Seoul, Beijing agree on basic guidelines for FTA negotiations

South Korea and China have reached an agreement on the modality or basic guidelines for their negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement (FTA), the Seoul government said Friday.The agreement came at the end of three-day talks that ended Thursday in Beijing, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy."At this week's meeting, the two sides reached an agreement on the modality for the FTA, concluding the first stage negotiations for the Korea-China FTA that began in May last year

Sept. 6, 2013