NTS chief seeks mutual taxation agreement with Indonesia

The chief of the National Tax Service of South Korea has approached Indonesia in hopes of revitalizing the mutual agreement procedure and advance pricing arrangement between the two countries to prevent double taxation and ease uncertainties for trading firms, according to the tax agency Wednesday. NTS Commissioner Kim Dae-ji visited Jakarta on Tuesday to meet with Indonesia’s tax authority, Commissioner Suryo Utomo. During the meeting, they discussed ways to maintain close interaction an

May 26, 2021

LG Innotek recognized for product quality by global car maker

LG Innotek, LG Group’s materials and components maker, received the Jaguar Land Rover Quality Certificate from the global car maker, the company announced Wednesday. 　 Jaguar Land Rover awards a quality excellence certificate to one supplier every year based on quality and the supplier’s adherence to delivery schedule.　 LG Innotek has been supplying a DC-DC converter product to the automaker since 2017. A DC-DC converter is a key component used in hybrid and electric cars. 　 This

May 26, 2021

S. Korea vows financial support to boost overseas green projects

The South Korean government said Wednesday it will expand financial support for domestic companies in green sectors to make inroads into the global market, in partnership with the Green Climate Fund. Launched in late 2010, the South Korea-based United Nations climate fund aims to channel money from industrialized nations to developing countries to help them tackle climate change-related problems. Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki and Yannick Glemarec, executive director of the GCF, agreed to inc

May 26, 2021

Genesis G80 earns top safety award from IIHS

South Korean luxury car brand Genesis' G80 sedan has earned the highest safety rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), the US auto safety organization said Wednesday. The G80 earned TOP SAFETY PICK+ by qualifying for a wide range of IIHS collision tests, including front crash prevention in vehicle-to-vehicle crashes and pedestrian front crash prevention, the US institute said on its website. To qualify for the IIHS' highest safety rating, a vehicle has to earn a high sc

May 26, 2021

LG CNS introduces upgraded security services under new brand

LG CNS Co., South Korea's major IT service firm, on Wednesday introduced upgraded security services under a new brand in a move to expand its presence in the cybersecurity sector. LG CNS said all of its security-related services, covering from cloud to smart factories, will be named under the brand of SecuXper, which combines the words "security" and "expert." With the new brand, LG CNS said it reinforced its security workforce, which includes some 200 cybersecurity exper

May 26, 2021

Doosan Infracore wins orders for 75 excavators from Saudi Arabia

South Korea's top construction equipment maker Doosan Infracore Co. said Wednesday that it has signed a deal to provide 75 excavators to Saudi Arabian builders. The deal consists of 70 22-ton excavators and five 50-ton excavators, the company said in an emailed statement. But it did not reveal the value of the deal. The excavators will be used for the construction of Neom City being built in the western part of the Middle Eastern country and to maintain and repair the country's power generat

May 26, 2021

KT to develop insurance programs for service robots

KT Corp., a major telecom firm in South Korea, said Wednesday it has joined hands with a local insurer to develop insurance coverage programs for service robots. KT signed a partnership with DB Insurance Co. to offer insurance programs dedicated solely to artificial intelligence (AI)-powered services. Starting next month, the telecom giant will collect data on possible robotics errors and accidents for a year under the liability coverage program offered by DB Insurance. Based on that data, th

May 26, 2021

LG Electronics to run nighttime clerkless shops in S. Korea

LG Electronics Inc. said Wednesday it will run some of its shops in South Korea clerkless during nighttime as the home appliance maker tries to attract more consumers amid the pandemic-induced contactless trend. LG said its nine stores, including six shops in Seoul, will operate without clerks from 8:30 p.m. to midnight daily, becoming the first electronics firm in the country to adopt such a system. Users can enter unmanned shops after scanning a QR code. Inside the store, they can use kios

May 26, 2021

SK nexilis to build copper foil factory in Europe

SK nexilis Co., a chemical unit of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, said Wednesday it will build a new copper foil factory in Europe to meet growing demand for the essential material for rechargeable batteries. SK nexilis, the copper making unit under SKC Inc. said it will expand its manufacturing capacity to over 200,000 tons a year by 2025, up from the current capacity of 43,000 tons.  Copper foil is as thin as one-fifteenth of human hair and is used as the anode current collector

May 26, 2021

Samsung ranks 2nd in Q1 chip sales: report

Samsung Electronics Co. was the world's second-largest semiconductor vendor in the first quarter of the year, a report showed Wednesday, after posting double-digit year-on-year sales growth. The South Korean tech juggernaut logged $17.07 billion in chip sales in the January-March period, up 15 percent from a year earlier, according to the latest McClean Report released by market researcher IC Insights. Samsung, the world's largest memory chip supplier, racked up $16.15 billion in integrated

May 26, 2021

Economists see BOK raise 2021 growth forecast to some 4%

The Bank of Korea (BOK) may raise its 2021 growth forecast to some 4 percent this week as exports showed signs of a strong recovery amid an aggressive fiscal stimulus, economists said Wednesday. The BOK is widely expected to freeze its key rate at a record low of 0.5 percent at Thursday's monetary policy meeting, but market observers will closely monitor the central bank's revised growth outlook. The BOK's February forecast was that South Korea's economy would grow 3 percent this year. So

May 26, 2021

Large firms' workforce drops 0.8% in 2020 amid pandemic

Large companies in South Korea cut their workforce nearly 1 percent in 2020 from a year earlier in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. According to CEO Score, 309 out of the country's top 500 corporations had a combined headcount of 1,203,835 as of the end of March, down 0.8 percent or 9,756 from end-December 2019. The number of their regular workers declined 1 percent to around 1.13 million over the cited period, with that of irregular employees edging up

May 26, 2021

Manufacturers' biz sentiment worsens for June

South Korean manufacturers' business sentiment fell for June, marking the first on-month decline since January, as chip shortages cost automakers, central bank data showed Wednesday. The business sentiment index (BSI) for local manufacturers came to 97 for June down from 98 for May, according to the data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The index measures manufacturers' outlook on business conditions in the following month. A reading below 100 means pessimists outnumber optimists. Hyundai Motor

May 26, 2021

[Graphic News] Korea ranks No. 9 for global entrepreneurship in 2020

　South Korea ranked ninth among 44 countries on a 2020 measure of global entrepreneurship, six notches up from a year earlier, the government said. 　Asia’s fourth-largest economy won 5.49 points out of a maximum of 10 on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor’s National Entrepreneurship Context Index, up from 5.13 in 2019, according to the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. 　Korea ranked first in the internal market dynamics category with 7.9 points, but came in 29th in the profession

May 26, 2021

Seoul stocks open higher on hopes of economic rebound

South Korean stocks opened higher Wednesday, helped by expectations of a fast economic recovery from the pandemic. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 6.76 points, or 0.21 percent, to 3,178.08 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stocks advanced despite the overnight losses on Wall Street, as local economists increasingly speculate that the central bank may raise its 2021 growth forecast to some 4 percent this week. A strong 41.1 percent jump in April exports

May 26, 2021

Real-time search and booking of ‘no-show’ vaccines to launch Thursday

South Korea will introduce real-time search and notification alerts for COVID-19 vaccination no-shows, in a bid to not waste a single dose. The services will launch on the country’s largest web portal Naver and No. 1 messenger app KakaoTalk at 1 p.m. Thursday, allowing all Koreans to check on the real-time availability of leftover vaccines nearby. Due to limited supply of jabs, only priority groups are eligible for vaccination right now in Korea and no-show appointments are the only way

May 25, 2021

Naver unveils first ‘hyperscale’ AI platform

South Korea’s IT giant Naver unveiled a supersized artificial intelligence platform on Tuesday that can process massive amounts of data, saying it aimed to lead the era of “hyperscale” AI. Dubbed HyperCLOVA, the firm’s latest AI tool is not only the local industry’s most advanced but is also the first large-scale AI trained in the Korean language, Naver said. “As a company that represents Korea’s artificial intelligence technology, we will find our w

May 25, 2021

Korean proptech Dongnae raises $8.2m in seed rounds

Dongnae, a property tech company based in South Korea, said on Tuesday that it has raised an additional $4.1 million in an extended seed series funding from global investors. Dongnae’s final seed round stood at $8.2 million including $4.1 million in the latest fundraising and another $4.1 million raised five months ago, the company said. The company’s seed funding size compares with local venture investments in all rounds that stood at an average of 2 billion won ($1.7 million) per

May 25, 2021

FTC to look further into Google and Facebook’s advertising practices

The Fair Trade Commission of South Korea is expected to survey the local digital advertising market to uncover any unfair practices on the part of major platform operators such as Google and Facebook. According to government officials Tuesday, the antitrust watchdog has commissioned research on potential antitrust issues in the local advertising market. It will include in-depth interviews with advertisers, ad agencies and consumers. The US-based internet giants Google and Facebook are among

May 25, 2021

S. Korea ranks 4th in number of AI patents, but impact falls short: report

South Korea ranks fourth in terms of the number of patents registered in the artificial intelligence sector, but an index showing the impact of the patents shows that the quality of patents from South Korea fell relatively short, according to a report, Tuesday. The report from Clarivate Analytics and KAIST Center for Innovation Strategy and Policy says that the number of patents that South Korea registered in the AI field has reached 6,317 between 2010 and 2019, the fourth highest among the 10

May 25, 2021