SK Geocentric invests $55m in US plastic waste recycling company

SK Geocentric Co., a chemical materials unit of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, said Tuesday it has acquired a stake worth $55 million in a US plastic waste recycling startup, in a step to bolster its green business. It acquired the stake in PureCycle Technologies Inc., a Florida-based plastic recycling company, through a recent rights offering, SK Geocentric said in a release, without disclosing details on the size of the stake. SK Geocentric has already partnered up with PureCycle to build

March 15, 2022

Daewoo Shipbuilding, Babcock sign MOU for warship partnership

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., the world's fourth-biggest shipbuilder by orders, said Tuesday it has signed an initial pact with a British shipbuilder for warship technology development. Daewoo Shipbuilding has signed a memorandum of understanding with Babcock International for a "strategic partnership" in developing technologies in aircraft carriers, the company said in a statement. Babcock was involved in developing the UK aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth. &quo

March 15, 2022

[Graphic News] Monthly salary of wage workers up 3.6%

　The average monthly salary of wage earners rose 3.6 percent on-year in 2020 from a year earlier despite the COVID-19 pandemic, a government report showed. 　South Korean wage workers earned a monthly average of 3.2 million won ($2,669) in December 2020, up from 3.09 million won a year earlier, according to the report from Statistics Korea. 　The figure for workers with large companies stood at 5.29 million won, with those in smaller firms earning 2.59 million won.  　The monthly pay for m

March 15, 2022

Seoul stocks open lower ahead of Fed meeting

South Korean stocks opened lower Tuesday, taking a cue from overnight Wall Street losses ahead of the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) had decreased 13.62 points, or 0.51 percent, to 2,632.03 points as of 9:15 a.m. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite lost 2.04 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed flat. The US Federal Reserve is widely expected to start hiking the interest rates from near zero this week, as the Uk

March 15, 2022

Korean Air suspends routes to Russia until April

South Korean national flag carrier Korean Air Lines Co. said Tuesday it will suspend routes to Russia until April due to safety concerns involving Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Korean Air will temporarily halt the operation of passenger jets to Moscow and Vladivostok and cargo planes that are bound for Europe via Moscow until the end of next month, the company said in a statement. Flights on some routes from Incheon to Europe and the United States will take a detour to avoid the Russian and Ukra

March 15, 2022

Import prices up for 2nd straight month in February on higher crude oil prices

South Korea's import prices grew for the second straight month in February as crude oil and other commodity prices jumped, central bank data showed Tuesday. The import price index gained 3.5 percent in February from a month earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea. The rise followed a 4.4 percent rise in January. The rise came as the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine has sent oil and other commodity prices even higher. The average monthly import prices of Dubai crud

March 15, 2022

Court finds Hana chairman nominee responsible for derivatives misselling

A Seoul court on Monday found Hana Financial Group Chairman-nominee Ham Young-joo responsible for Hana Bank’s improper sales of derivatives-linked products that caused a fiasco in 2019 after investors saw huge losses. Defying market expectations, the Seoul Administrative Court found the chairman-nominee and then-Hana Bank CEO guilty of failing to appropriately supervise the bank’s misselling of troubled products to its consumers. The court nodded to the financial authorities&rsquo

March 14, 2022

Only 0.2% of Koreans avoid meat, vegans even rarer, study finds

A report released by Korea Agro-Fisheries and Food Trade Corporation on Monday found that only 13 out of the 5,510 respondents, which represents a mere 0.2 percent, chose not to eat meat, specifically beef, pork, poultry, and fish. The questionnaire covered seven different types of vegetarian diet, from the most restrictive form, veganism, to more lenient ones along the scale. Out of the 5,510 respondents, 418 followed some kind of meat restrictive diet. These include some less restrictive p

March 14, 2022

Celltrion shares soar on lenient penalties

South Korea’s leading drugmaker Celltrion saw its shares rise Monday after financial authorities had decided not to press charges for accounting fraud as long as the company pays fines, names an independent oversight board and removes the executives responsible. On Friday, the Financial Services Commission said Celltrion, Celltrion Pharm, and Celltrion Healthcare -- three listed firms that respectively develop anticancer drugs, make biopharmaceuticals, and distribute the products -- had o

March 14, 2022

What to expect from Samsung’s shareholder meeting

Samsung Electronics will hold an annual meeting of shareholders on Wednesday, amid complaints growing over performance issues of its latest Galaxy phones and falling stock prices that failed to reflect the world’s top smartphone and chip maker’s robust earnings. The key agenda of the upcoming meeting is the appointment of four presidents, including Kyung Kye-hyun, co-CEO and head of chip business, and Roh Tae-moon, head of mobile business, as new internal board members. Industry w

March 14, 2022

[Test Drive] Electrified Mini adds comfort in city driving

For Mini Cooper fans, it’s likely the car’s iconic design is enough for them to put up with the notorious bumpy ride. The electrified compact vehicle, however, dispels such worries. Like any other EVs, the Mini Cooper SE Electric offers a smooth driving experience in a quieter atmosphere. Not just because of the 32.6 kWh battery that replaces the gasoline-powered powertrain but also because of the lower center of gravity, 30 millimeters lower than the standard Cooper -- a significa

March 14, 2022

Samsung, Posco make foray into solid-state batteries

South Korean conglomerates Samsung and Posco on Monday each announced plans to build production lines of solid-state batteries, an up-and-coming technology in making fireproof and energy-dense lithium-ion batteries that can boost electric vehicle range. Samsung SDI, a battery arm of Korea’s largest conglomerate by assets, said the company has started the construction of a 6,500-square-meter pilot assembly line for manufacturing solid-state batteries that power electric cars in Suwon, Gye

March 14, 2022

‘More companies considering reshoring after COVID-19’

A much greater number of Korean companies are considering bringing their manufacturing and services back home compared to two years ago, the Federation of Korean Industries said Monday. According to a survey of 105 of the country’s top 500 businesses in sales, conducted for a week through Feb. 24 by a pollster commissioned by the business lobbying group, 27.8 percent said they were currently mulling reshoring. In a similar poll of Korea’s 1,000 largest firms in sales conducted in M

March 14, 2022

Kakao founder quits board to explore overseas business

Korea’s tech titan Kakao said Monday that its founder Kim Beom-su will leave his chairman post at the board to explore new business opportunities overseas and break the boundary of mobile-focused platform businesses. Kim’s resignation as the chairman of the board will be approved at the upcoming shareholders meeting on March 29. Kim will resume his post as the head of the company’s Future Initiative Center, Kakao said. The Kakao founder has chaired the board since 2015. Based

March 14, 2022

Booyoung Group donates W500m, 300 housing units to wildfire victims

South Korea’s construction giant Booyoung Group said Monday it will donate 500 million won ($403,000) to victims of the recent wildfires that ravaged the east coast, as well as 300 flats to shelter those who lost homes to the fire. The donation fund will be delivered through the Korea Disaster Relief Association, a non-profit organization that serves victims of domestic natural disasters. As for the flats, Booyoung plans to secure 300 housing units from its own apartment complexes in th

March 14, 2022

[Newsmaker] Naver's new CEO all-in on going global

Naver will become an incubator that creates innovative technology penetrating the global market and seek to go beyond providing services that are popular today, the company’s new CEO said Monday. “Not only all businesses owned by Naver began with the thought of going global from the start, but all of the objectives also point to going global,” Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon said at a meeting with shareholders and board of directors where she was appointed as the new chief. The IT g

March 14, 2022

LG Electronics hires UCLA professor for logistic robots

Seoul-based LG Electronics announced Monday that it is working with Korean American robot engineer Dennis Hong to develop a robotics solution for the logistics sector. The collaboration between LG Electronics’ Advanced Robotics Lab and Hong, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, is aimed at promoting “advances in robotics technology to a wider audience” so that products can be shipped from warehouses to customers mor

March 14, 2022

NongHyup gets preliminary approval to operate in Noida, India

South Korea’s NongHyup Bank has received preliminary approval from India’s financial authorities to establish a branch in the South Asian nation’s planned industrial city of Noida. If the branch is established, it will mark NongHyup’s second business entity in India, after its New Delhi office opened in 2016. The move to open a branch in Noida is part of NongHyup’s plan to have more than 14 business entities in 12 nations across the world by 2025. It opened a bran

March 14, 2022

S. Korea's ICT exports surge 24% in Feb. on robust chip demand

South Korea's exports of information and communication technology (ICT) products soared 24 percent in February on the back of strong global demand for chips and displays, data showed Monday. Outbound shipments of ICT products reached $18.88 billion last month, up 23.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. The figure represents the largest ever for any February and the 11th consecutive month of on-year gains since April last year. ICT imports sto

March 14, 2022

Top shipper HMM halts two Far East routes amid Russian invasion of Ukraine

HMM Co., South Korea's leading container shipper, said Monday it has decided to temporarily suspend two Far East shipping routes in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The decision affects HMM's shipping routes between South Korea's southeastern port of Busan and Russia's Far East ports of Vostochny and Vladivostok. "The temporary suspension of bookings for the routes is inevitable as the war between Russia and Ukraine has sent cargo volume tumbling," HMM said. "We will push

March 14, 2022