Household spending on food, hospitality services dips in Q4 amid pandemic

South Korean households' spending on restaurants and hotels dropped in the fourth quarter of last year amid a resurge of coronavirus infections, central bank data showed Thursday. Household spending on eating out and hospitality services came to 18.9 trillion won ($16.6 billion) in the October-December period, dropping below the 20 trillion-won mark for the first time in five years, according to the data from the Bank of Korea. The corresponding figure amounted to 19.9 trillion won in the firs

March 11, 2021

Imports of Japanese beer rise for 5th month in Jan.

South Korea's imports of Japanese beer climbed for the fifth straight month in January, data showed Thursday, amid signs of a weaker local boycott of goods from the neighboring country. Asia's fourth-largest economy brought in 1,072 tons of Japanese beer in January, up a whopping 670.3 percent from the same month last year, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service and the liquor industry. Industry watchers said the consecutive increase is due to weakening anti-Japan sentiment in So

March 11, 2021

Facebook launches Instagram Lite in 170 lower bandwidth countries

Facebook said onWednesday it was launching a "lite" version of Instagram in 170 countries that will enable people with poor internet to access the photo and video sharing social networking service. Instagram Lite will be available for Android-based phonesand require less bandwidth than the traditional version.The app itself requires just 2 megabytes (MB) -- versus 30 MB for Instagram -- and runs even on slower 2G networks, allowing customers in parts of India, Africa, Asia and Latin

March 10, 2021

Kumho Tire to invest W340b in Vietnamese expansion

Kumho Tire Co., South Korea's second-largest tiremaker by sales, said Wednesday it will invest some 340 billion won ($298 million) to expand its production facilities in Vietnam. In a regulatory filing, Kumho Tire said that the investment will raise its tire production by about 3.8 million units, including 3 million for sedans and some 800,000 for trucks and buses. The investment will begin in the third quarter of this year, and is set to be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2023

March 10, 2021

BlackRock increases 1% stake in KB Financial

US investor BlackRock said Wednesday it has increased its stake in South Korea‘s largest banking group KB Financial Group to 6.02 percent, from 5.01 percent in May 2014. According to the disclosure, BlackRock Fund Advisors and 14 specially related entities had net bought a combined 314.8 billion won ($275.4 million) worth of shares in KB Financial over the past seven years. As a result, BlackRock was holding some 25 million shares out of KB Financial’s total 415.8 million outstandi

March 10, 2021

[News Focus] 10 years after Fukushima, where does Korea stand on nuclear energy?

On March 11, 2011, the strongest earthquake in Japan’s recorded history triggered a 15-meter tsunami, which swept over the Fukushima nuclear power plant’s 5-meter seawall in what soon came to be known as the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl. A decade has passed, but areas around the Fukushima plant remain off-limits and worries about radiation levels persist. The decommissioning of the crippled plant will take decades and billions of dollars, experts say. Sou

March 10, 2021

SK Bioscience’s IPO attracts record subscription bids

South Korean investors have showed heated interest in the imminent market debut of SK Bioscience as they poured nearly 64 trillion won ($56.06 billion) of deposits in the two-day public subscription period for the local vaccine maker’s stocks. Reflecting investors’ thirst for financial income and high market liquidity, retail traders bought about 63.62 trillion won in deposits by the deadline at 4 p.m. on Wednesday. The amount surpassed not only one of the last year’s biggest

March 10, 2021

LH scandal adds to skepticism on Moon’s ‘new towns’

While the so-called LH land profiteering scandal has snowballed into an extensive corruption case, there is suspicion that similar confidential information leaks may have occurred among public servants and state-run developer employees in other redevelopment cases. The issue is also seen as a landmark challenge for the Moon Jae-in administration, which has struggled for years to stabilize the real estate market -- to little avail. The city of Gwangmyeong has confirmed that five more of its aff

March 10, 2021

South Korean mortgages surge in Feb.

South Korean banks’ total outstanding mortgages extended to households gained 6.4 trillion won ($5.6 billion) on-month in February, central bank data showed Wednesday, with the figure marking the second-largest increase for the month. Outstanding mortgages stood at 733.3 trillion won as of end-February, according to the Bank of Korea. The 6.4 trillion-won gain was the second-largest increase in the month of February the BOK has seen since it started compiling such data in 2004. Of the

March 10, 2021

[Top Bankers] Head of bankers’ club in South Korea calls for stricter regulation on big tech

This is a part of series of interviews and analysis of South Korea’s top bankers, policymakers and investors leading the financial industry here. This is the first installment. -- Ed. Banks are facing ever intensifying competition from IT companies as consumers gravitate toward digital financial services tailored to their needs. Korea Federation of Banks Chairman Kim Gwang-soo, however, believes lenders have a distinctive competency that could overcome challenges posed by fintech

March 10, 2021

Seoul stocks fall for 5th straight session on slump in techs and autos

South Korean stocks fell for the fifth consecutive session Wednesday, led by a decline in techs and autos, as foreigners and institutions attempted to lock in profits amid lingering concerns of inflation. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. After choppy trading, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 18.00 points, or 0.60 percent, to close at 2,958.12, after rising as high as 3,013.95 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 887.07 million shares worth around 1

March 10, 2021

LG seeks part in Tesla-designed battery rollout: sources

South Korea’s leading battery maker LG Energy Solution is in the race for mass production of a new type of battery cells designed in-house by and under pilot production at Tesla, according to industry sources and media reports. The Korean firm, which currently supplies cylindrical batteries that contain 80 percent nickel to Tesla Model 3 sedans manufactured in China, is making preparations for its major client’s future deployment of larger-format batteries, referred to as 4680 ce

March 10, 2021

Samsung to hold first Unpacked event for midrange phones

Samsung Electronics is preparing for another event to unveil some of its newest Galaxy devices next week as a likely move to garner attention for products other than its flagship S series. The tech giant has sent out invitations to a new unveiling event for its Galaxy devices, “Galaxy Awesome Unpacked.” The event is a new addition this year to Samsung’s existing Galaxy Unpacked events, which are usually held twice a year to announce flagship phones. The invitation said

March 10, 2021

Samsung launches first DRAM-less SSD

Samsung Electronics said Wednesday that the company will roll out the first consumer drive without DRAM -- the 980 Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) SSD, which delivers the highest performance among DRAM-less SSDs at a faster speed. Previously, DRAM-less designs had a disadvantage in speed as they lacked the short-term memory for fast access to data. To address the issue and overcome any performance drawbacks, Samsung used the Host Memory Buffer technology, which links the drive directly

March 10, 2021

S. Korea eyes annual exports of $700b by 2025

South Korea said Wednesday it plans to achieve annual exports of $700 billion by 2025 by expanding financial support for exporters while fostering new growth engines, particularly in the health care segment. To meet the goal, the country plans to spend 20 trillion won ($17.4 billion) on trade financing for exporters through 2025, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. "The global trade environment has been facing changes due to the rising awareness of carbon neutrality,

March 10, 2021

Amorepacific becomes first South Korean cosmetics company to join RE100

Amorepacific said Wednesday it has joined RE100, a global renewable power initiative, becoming the first South Korean cosmetics firm to do so. The company plans to supply electricity in the workplace entirely with renewable energy by 2030 in an effort to help tackle climate change. From production to logistics, energy sourced to run all of its facilities at home and abroad, including the headquarters and its research center, will be affected by the initiative. Launched in 2014 and led by the

March 10, 2021

Hana Financial declares carbon neutrality vision

Hana Financial Group on Wednesday unveiled its vision to go carbon neutral by 2050 to support the nation’s transition toward a sustainable economy. Under the goal of achieving “coal-free finance,” the banking giant will launch an internal committee in charge of halting financial support -- including project financing and underwriting of bonds -- for businesses that have adverse environmental and social impacts, as early as during the first half of this year, officials said.

March 10, 2021

S-Oil chief says ‘digital transition is matter of survival’

S-Oil said Wednesday it will deploy drones and smart helmets at all business sites by 2023 to accelerate its digital transformation. According to the South Korean refinery, drones will fly above 100 meters at its plants and check the safety of flare stacks, a gas combustion device in the shape of a chimney designed to burn unwanted or excess gases. The drones will provide video feeds and analysis of the facilities. “Digital transformation is not a matter of choice, but a must to comp

March 10, 2021

NPS to remain neutral over embroiled Posco chief’s second term

The National Pension Service said Wednesday it would engage in voting for Posco Chairman and CEO Choi Jeong-woo’s new term as a Posco board member in a way that does not affect the result of the shareholders’ vote on Friday. The decision not to vote against Choi comes as a series of workplace accidents, the company‘s involvement in a coal-fired project and alleged ties to Myanmar‘s military coup piled pressure on Choi, who served as chief of the steel-to-chemicals congl

March 10, 2021

Hyundai Motor’s Kona N teased, appears to have sharper look

Hyundai Motor released teaser images of Kona N, its first performance-oriented sports utility model, on Wednesday. Kona N, the second variation of the automaker’s high-performance N brand to be launched in South Korea, is based on Hyundai’s Kona, which launched in September 2020. It is the second model in the N series in South Korea, after the Veloster N. Hyundai’s i30 hatchback also has an N variant, but it has not been released in the Korean market. In the teaser, Kona

March 10, 2021