S. Korean disease institute, Moderna agree to collaborate in SFTS mRNA vaccine development

South Korea's state-run National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) said Wednesday it has reached an agreement with Moderna Inc., a US biotech company, to cooperate in the development of a messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine candidate for severe fever and thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS). The institute said the deal, signed Monday, was its first joint project agreement with an overseas pharmaceutical company. The institute said it expects the research to help elevate the center's researc

July 20, 2022

Top 1,000 firms' debt ratio more than halves over 2 decades

The debt ratio of South Korea's leading 1,000 companies by sales has more than halved over the past 21 years, pointing to a sharp increase in their financial health, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The average debt-to-equity ratio of those big companies stood at 160 percent in 2021, compared with 323 percent in 2000, according to the Korea CXO Institute. A key barometer of financial soundness, the ratio is calculated by dividing a company's total liabilities by its stockholders

July 20, 2022

Stock settlements drop 27 % in H1: KSD

The amount of stock settlements here plunged 27 percent in the first half of this year from a year earlier, largely due to a slump in the global stock market, data showed Wednesday. In the January-June period, a total of 203.9 trillion won ($156 billion) worth of stock settlements were made through the Korea Securities Depository (KSD), down 27.3 percent from a year ago, according to the data. The tally also shrank 11.6 percent from six months earlier. The KSD said stock settlements were on a de

July 20, 2022

S. Korean economy feared to slow down amid external uncertainty: govt.

The South Korean economy is feared to slow down, as inflationary pressure has mounted and export growth could lose steam amid deteriorating external economic conditions, the finance ministry said Wednesday. Market volatility and global economic downside risks further increased, led by the Federal Reserve's fast rate hikes, China's economic slowdown, and the protracted war between Russia and Ukraine, the ministry said in its monthly economic assessment report, called the Green Book. "Domesti

July 20, 2022

Samsung Bioepis' biosimilar candidate SB12 under approval review in Europe, S. Korea

S outh Korean biopharmaceutical firm Samsung Bioepis Co. was in the process of acquiring regulatory approval from European and South Korean drug authorities for SB12, a paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) treatment biosimilar candidate, industry sources said Wednesday. The company has submitted approval applications for SB12, a more affordable version of Soliris, a drug originally developed by U.S.-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals Inc., with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) and the Ministr

July 20, 2022

Hyundai to supply 50 IONIQ 5 models to Japanese taxi firm

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co. said Wednesday it will supply 50 IONIQ 5 all-electric vehicles to a Japanese taxi company from August. Hyundai Motor has recently signed a deal with Kyoto-based MK Taxi to gradually supply the 50 zero-emission models to the Japanese company, the company said in a statement. The IONIQ 5 is embedded with Hyundai Motor Group's EV-only platform E-GMP and can travel up to 618 kilometers on a single charge with a 72.6 kWh battery pack, it said. MK Taxi plans t

July 20, 2022

Seoul shares open higher on US gains

South Korean stocks got off to a strong start Wednesday, tracking overnight gains on Wall Street. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index added 32.69 points, or 1.38 percent, to trade at 2,403.66 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Overnight, US stocks rallied on better-than-expected corporate earnings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.43 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite surged 3.11 percent. In Seoul, most big-cap shares gathered ground, with techs and financi

July 20, 2022

Major firms' economic contribution jumps 20% over past 9 years

Major companies in South Korea have seen their total economic contribution soar 20 percent over the past nine years thanks to their robust growth, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The value of economic contribution created by the country's top 100 firms by sales came to 1,238 trillion won ($950 billion) last year, up 206.5 trillion won from 2012, according to CEO Score. Economic contribution refers to the economic value of a corporation's business activities shared among such interested parti

July 20, 2022

S. Korea's dependence on Japanese materials hits all-time low in H1

South Korea's dependence on Japanese materials and parts fell to an all-time low in the first half of this year, three years after Tokyo's control of exports of key materials bound for Seoul, data showed Wednesday. Imports of Japanese materials, parts and equipment came to US$20.07 billion during the January-June period, accounting for 15.4 percent of South Korea's overall purchase of those goods, according to the data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. It is the low

July 20, 2022

Work-life balance key to women leadership: Yellen

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said work-life balance plays a key role in shaping a work environment that is appealing to women, who she described as still underrepresented in workplaces, at a meeting with the Bank of Korea’s female workers held Tuesday in Seoul. “Work-life balance is a tremendous problem. I guess it’s a huge problem here, too,” Yellen said, describing having a family while working in challenging jobs as a hurdle for women pursuing a career. The meet

July 19, 2022

Boys go for delivery food, girls go for coffee: report

Among Korean teenagers, female students made purchases mostly at coffee shops while male students spent their money on food delivery and late-night snack shops the most, data showed Tuesday. According to KB Kookmin‘s card analysis of debit card sales, 14 percent of male middle and high school students holding KB debit cards, paid for food delivery and late-night snacks, while 11 percent spent their allowances at hamburger restaurants and coffee shops. The analysis further showed that 19

July 19, 2022

Hyundai Motor, Rolls-Royce team up for air mobility

South Korean carmaker Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday that it would collaborate with global aero-engine maker Rolls-Royce to deliver all-electric propulsion and hydrogen fuel cell technology for advanced air mobility (AAM). AAM is a future mobility concept that integrates transformational aircraft design and flying tech. It has been the Korean carmaker’s recent focus for future mobility business. It created Supernal, an AAM-dedicated company based in US, last year.  According to H

July 19, 2022

Seoul shares edge down amid recession woes

South Korean stocks snapped their two-day winning streak Tuesday, weighed down by concerns about rate hikes and slower economic growth. The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) retreated 4.28 points, or 0.18 percent, to close at 2,370.97 points. Trading volume was relatively small at about 332 million shares worth some 6.3 trillion won ($4.8 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 573 to 271. Institutions sold a net 145 billion won, wh

July 19, 2022

Low-calorie foods show surge in sales

With the fast-growing appetite for low-calorie and healthy food sparked by the coronavirus pandemic, South Korean retailers have seen a spike in their “low-food” products. Low-food refers to low-calorie, gluten-free or non-alcohol food and beverage with fewer artificial additives. E-commerce platform WeMakePrice said on Tuesday that its zero-calorie soft drink sales surged 396 percent as of June. Sales of caffeine-free drinks increased by 96 percent. Among them, barley coffee, a

July 19, 2022

SK hynix delays decision on W4tr plant expansion

Chaebol groups in South Korea are looking to rethink their ambitious investment plans that were announced earlier this year as fears of a global recession are clouding their business outlook. According to industry sources on Monday, SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory chip maker, recently delayed a decision on its 4 trillion won ($3 billion) expansion plan for local production facilities. The company had planned to build a new plant, called M17, within its chip-making complex i

July 19, 2022

[From the Scene] Where have all the taxis gone? Seoul's taxi shortage intensifies

A 24-year-old office employee surnamed Park stands with his coworker on the sidewalk next to Tehaeranro in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, after leaving a company dinner at midnight on Tuesday. They both whip out their phones to order a cab on two of South Korea‘s most used taxi reservation apps, Kakao T and UT, but have little luck. A few taxis race past them, but are occupied or blinking with a green display that reads “reserved.” “Using a taxi is almost the only way to get home pa

July 19, 2022

SK Bioscience upgrades vaccine deal with Novavax

SK Bioscience has renewed a contract manufacturing organization deal with US biotech Novavax to produce COVID-19 vaccines targeted at preventing the spread of highly contagious variants such as BA.5, officials said Tuesday. The two firms had signed a CMO deal to produce Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine last year. According to the South Korean company, the renewal will allow the transfer of Novavax’s technology to SK Bioscience, which will then manufacture Novavax’s undiluted COVI

July 19, 2022

Yellen spends jam-packed day in Korea for stronger economic alliance, wider investment

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged her South Korean counterparts and businesspeople to build stable supply chains with allies and to expand investment during her jam-packed visit to Korea on Tuesday, which buoyed market expectations on forging stronger bilateral ties to fight against economic uncertainty. Starting the day by visiting LG Science Park in western Seoul, Yellen had separate meetings with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol, Finance Minister Choo Kyung-ho and Bank of Korea G

July 19, 2022

FSC to review removing hurdles on companies owning banks

South Korea’s top financial regulator pledged Tuesday to review lowering the regulatory barriers that limit the industrial sector from owning banks, to accelerate digitalization of the economy and global growth. “The goal of our financial regulatory overhaul is to create a new field, so that leading global players like (K-pop band) BTS can be born in our financial industry,” Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Joo-hyeon told a regulatory reform meeting. “We will

July 19, 2022

Han Sung Motor promotes online ESG campaign with environmental personality quiz

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, an introspective self-report questionnaire that divides people into 16 types, has been a popular topic of conversation or pastime among millennials and Generation Z in South Korea, as the pandemic gave them more time to introspect. It’s not uncommon to see the young cohort -- those born between the 1980s up to the 2010s -- start conversations with people they meet for the first time by asking each other about their MBTI types – a combination of extra

July 19, 2022