Jin Air Co., an affiliate of South Korea’s largest airline Korean Air Lines Co., said Monday it has launched a regular flight to the southern Japanese city of Okinawa.The debut service departed from Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, at 10:35 a.m. on Monday and landed in Okinawa at 12:45 p.m.The carrier said it will offer daily morning flights connecting the two cities with the 180-seat B737-800 passenger jet.The latest move raised the number of routes operated by Jin Air to 12 destin

Dec. 24, 2012

Hollys Coffee Co., a South Korean coffee shop chain, said Monday it will open 100 shops in China within the next two years as part of its efforts to expand its overseas business.Hollys Coffee said it has signed a franchise rights contract with Dongling Group to open a coffee shop in Shenzhen, southern China, in May next year. It is the third Hollys coffee shop in China and the first in collaboration with the Chinese firm.“We seek to open 100 shops in China in cooperation with Dongling Group by 2

Dec. 24, 2012

Hyundai Rotem Co., a South Korean tank and train maker, said Monday that it has clinched a US$353 million order to supply railcars to Egypt.The order was placed by the National Authority for Tunnels, which is responsible for building metro systems and road tunnels in Egypt. The railcars will be delivered, beginning in early 2015, Hyundai Rotem said.The South Korean company also said it secured a separate $502 million deal to supply railcars to the government-owned Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway

Dec. 24, 2012

The number of newborns in October has risen for the sixth straight month on the back of more marriages in the year of the Golden Pig, according to government figures on Monday. Statistics Korea said that in that month, the birth of newborns rose by 9.1 percent from the same period last year to reach 41,900 babies born. The clip was the largest since January 2011, when the number grew by 10.8 percent on-year.“The so-called ‘Echo Boom Generation,’ indicating the generation born to the baby boomers

Dec. 24, 2012

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The foreign business community here hoped for better days under a new government in Korea, but expressed lingering doubts over the future, citing the bleak external market conditions.“The good thing about having elected Park Geun-hye as president is that the risk factors, such as exactly how much change would be delivered to the corporate sector, has been pretty much eliminated,” said one source in the foreign industry who wished to remain anonymous. “However, because the overseas economies, suc

Dec. 21, 2012

Organizations representing local industries mostly welcomed Saenuri Party Park Geun-hye’s election to president, but made big demands the incoming government to help promote fair competition in the corporate sector. “The leadership of the next president will play a critical role for our country to navigate the very tough times we face today in the form of an overall anemic economy defined by contracting exports, sluggish consumption and growing household debt,” the Federation of Korean Industrie

Dec. 20, 2012

South Korean stocks got off to a strong start on Thursday, boosted by expectations for the president-elect and her new government scheduled to take office next year, analysts said. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) advanced 11.48 points, or 0.58 percent, to 2,004.57 in the first 15 minutes of trading. On Wednesday, ruling conservative candidate Park Geun-hye won the presidential election against rival Moon Jae-in of the liberal opposition by garnering 51.6 percent of the vo

Dec. 20, 2012

HONG KONG (Yonhap News) ― Korea and Hong Kong have agreed to cooperate on customs services, officials here said Wednesday. Joo Yung-sup, the commissioner of the Korea Customs Service, and Clement Cheung, the commissioner of Hong Kong Customs and Excise, signed the agreement Tuesday in Seoul on the sidelines of a customs cooperation conference between the two sides, Hong Kong officials said.The conference offered a platform for the customs offices from South Korea and from Hong Kong to update the

Dec. 19, 2012

South Korea’s labor productivity fell from a year earlier in the third quarter amid the protracted economic slowdown, a report showed Wednesday.The country’s overall labor productivity moved down 1.8 percent on-year to 104 in the July-September period, led by losses in the construction industry, where the productivity index plunged 14.1 percent, according to a report by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.Labor productivity is measured by dividing industrial output by labor input during a given pe

Dec. 19, 2012