Kia unveils ‘Kia Store’ design concept for showrooms

Kia on Thursday unveiled the new design concept for its showrooms, renamed “Kia Stores” to reflect a renewed brand identity and strategy. Each Kia Store will provide customized service and a varied mobility experience to users, officials said in a release. The Kia Store model was inspired by the company’s “opposites united” design philosophy, which seeks to embrace opposing concepts and combine them in an integrated design. To maximize the contrast, every Kia

June 17, 2021

Eastar Jet to be acquired by cash-rich property developer SJ

Sung Jung, a midsized real estate developer here, on Thursday confirmed its intention to acquire the financially struggling low-cost air carrier Eastar Jet by raising its initial bidding amount. Losing out on the bid was the well-funded consortium led by underwear manufacturer Ssang Bang Wool and equipment maker Kanglim. The companies saw their stock value take a double dip this week amid the neck-and-neck takeover battle. The real estate developer submitted its official statement to the Se

June 17, 2021

Seoul stocks snap 5-day rise on Fed's hawkish comments, Kosdaq tops 1,000 points again

South Korean stocks ended a five-session winning streak Thursday as investor sentiment for risky assets weakened over the Federal Reserve's comments about an earlier-than-expected timeline for a rate hike. The Korean won steeply fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 13.72 points, or 0.42 percent, to close at 3,264.96 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.8 billion shares worth some 14.4 trillion won ($12.7 billion), with losers outnum

June 17, 2021

Waves of female leaders

Hana Financial Group Chairman Kim Jung-tai (fifth from left, second row) poses with female midlevel managers during a launch ceremony of a new in-house program titled Hana Waves held at its headquarters in central Seoul on Tuesday. Members invited to the first series of programs have been recommended by CEOs of Hana affiliates to develop their leadership roles as part of the group‘s gender diversity efforts at the C-suite level. (Hana Financial Group)

June 17, 2021

GS Caltex makes S. Korea’s 1st ‘carbon neutral’ crude oil purchase

GS Caltex said Thursday it has purchased 2 million barrels of crude oil certified as “carbon neutral” at the point of production, becoming the first South Korean firm to buy carbon neutral crude oil. According to the total energy company, the carbon neutral oil is extracted from Sweden-based Lundin Energy’s Johan Sverdrup oil field in Norway. The offshore field, certified as carbon neutral under product testing company Intertek’s CarbonZero standard, emits 0.45 kilogr

June 17, 2021

Saudi Aramco selects S-Oil as ‘best performing’ affiliate

S-Oil won the excellence award from Saudi Arabian oil giant Aramco which honors high-achievers among the group’s refining and petrochemical affiliates at home and abroad. It was awarded the best performance award, the top prize in the operational excellence category at Saudi Aramco 2021 President’s Affiliates Excellence Awards, S-Oil said on Thursday. Saudi Aramco assesses the business results of its downstream affiliates every year and presents awards in four categories -- hea

June 17, 2021

LG Energy Solution batteries power world’s largest ESS project

LG Energy Solution said Thursday it has completed the supply of its new battery system TR1300 to the world’s largest energy storage systems project in California, which is able to power 225,000 households during peak hours. According to the South Korean battery manufacturer, the 1.2-gigawatt-hour ESS facility, developed by Texas-based power generation firm Vistra, is equipped with 4,500 TR1300 battery racks. Vistra connected the energy storage systems to the power grid and began oper

June 17, 2021

South Korea's housing market unperturbed by rate hike: experts

The likely scenario of South Korea’s central bank carrying out out a rate hike by the end of the year is unlikely to cool the heated housing market here, industry insiders said on Thursday, dismissing the impact of monetary policies on real estate prices that surged in recent months. The envisioned rate hike would lead to an increase in the interest rates for household loans and mortgages extended by local commercial banks. But the housing market is likely to stay hot for a while mainly d

June 17, 2021

Han Sung Motor opens Dream Gream online merch store

Han Sung Motor, an official Mercedes-Benz dealer, on Thursday opened an online store offering merchandise made by students participating in its Dream Gream art scholarship program. The store sells merchandise made by its scholarship recipients, artistically gifted middle and highs school students, in collaboration with professional artists. Items on sale include note papers, decorative masking tape, travel bags and fabric sprays, as well as items produced in collaboration with companies inclu

June 17, 2021

Merck Korea offers technology education program for students in Gyeonggi Province

Merck Korea is offering education on semiconductor and display solutions to local high school and college students studying related subjects, as part of its ESG initiative, the company said Thursday. According to the Korean unit of the science and technology company, the new education program comes after Kai Beckmann, member of the executive board of Merck and CEO of the Electronics, and Gyeonggi Province Gov. Lee Jae-myung agreed on a partnership in April. During their meeting, the two sid

June 17, 2021

[News Focus] Volume of online shopping up 3 trillion won in a year

SEJONG -- The active shopping via the internet of households is likely to contribute much to the gross domestic product of South Korea in terms of increasing production and reducing the inventories of local manufacturers. The prospects can be read from a surge in recent years in the monthly turnover of retailers selling products online. According to Statistics Korea, monthly online shopping transactions reached 15.09 trillion won ($13.49 billion) in April 2021 (the latest available figure). T

June 17, 2021

State asset manager KAMCO sells W200b in ESG bonds

South Korea's state-run Korea Asset Management Corp. (KAMCO) said Thursday it has sold 200 billion won ($177 million) in environment, social and governance (ESG) bonds to help support pandemic-hit households and companies. The five-year bonds, which mark KAMCO's first ESG debt sale in line with standards set by the International Capital Market Association, carry an annual interest rate of 1.884 percent. The state asset manager said the proceeds will be used in helping the vulnerable by purchas

June 17, 2021

Corporate sales rebound, profit margin grows in Q1 amid pandemic

South Korean companies saw their profitability continue their growth in the first quarter, with their sales rebounding from the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, central bank data showed Thursday. The ratio of operating profit to sales of firms in the country reached 6.4 percent in the first quarter, up from 4.2 percent tallied a year ago, according to the data by the Bank of Korea (BOK). At the same time, the pretax net profit margin of South Korean companies rose on-year to 7.9 percent from

June 17, 2021

KT to invest W23.6b in fintech Webcash Group

KT Corp., a major South Korean telecom operator, said Thursday it will invest a total of 23.6 billion won ($20.9 million) in three companies under the fintech-focused Webcash Group in a move to strengthen its foothold in financial services. A KT spokesperson said the company will invest 14.4 billion won in Webcash, which operates Kyungrinara, a bookkeeping solution for small businesses, and a combined 9.2 billion won in bizplay, a business expense management platform operator, and Roumit, also

June 17, 2021

Hyundai resumes plant after brief halt over part shortage

Hyundai Motor Co. said Thursday it has resumed operations of a local plant following a one-day suspension due to lack of semiconductors. Hyundai halted the Asan plant, which produces the Grandeur sedan, on Wednesday, causing production losses of 1,027 vehicles, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company has temporarily halted some of its domestic plants on a chip shortage. It has seven domestic plants -- five in Ulsan, one in Asan and one in Jeonju -- and 10 overseas plants -- four

June 17, 2021

S. Korea vigilant over market volatility after Fed's hawkish stance

South Korea will closely monitor the financial market as market volatility could increase following the Federal Reserve's signal of an earlier-than-expected rate hike, a senior government official said Thursday. After freezing its key rate at near zero at a policy meeting, the Fed signaled an earlier-than-expected rate increase in 2023 as US inflation is rising amid an economic recovery. The US central bank also hinted it began discussing when to taper bond-buying programs. Bearing the Fed's s

June 17, 2021

LG Energy completes battery supply to world's largest ESS project

South Korean battery maker LG Energy Solution Ltd. said Thursday it has completed the supply of its battery system to the world's largest energy storage system (ESS) that has come online in the United States. LG Energy, a battery unit under LG Chem Ltd., said its lithium-ion batteries are now running on US power generation firm Vistra Energy's 1.2 gigawatt-hour (GWh) ESS facility in California. In December, Vistra connected the ESS facility to its 1,020-MW combined cycle gas turbine power pla

June 17, 2021

S. Korea, US extend $60b currency swap deal until Dec.

South Korea and the United States have agreed to extend their $60 billion currency swap agreement by another three months through Dec. 31, which was signed to help ease market uncertainties caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bank of Korea (BOK) said Thursday. The BOK and the Federal Reserve reached an agreement to extend the bilateral currency swap deal, which was due to expire on Sept. 30, after extending it twice since it went effect in March 2020 to ease financial jitters caused by the pan

June 17, 2021

Seoul stocks open lower on Fed's hawkish comment

South Korean stocks opened lower Thursday as the Federal Reserve made comments about an earlier-than-expected timeline for a rate hike. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) fell 19.61 points, or 0.6 percent, to trade at 3,259.07 points in the first 15 minutes of trading. Stock prices fell after the key stock index finished at an all-time high the previous session, taking a cue from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's comment that the Fed began discussing measures to sca

June 17, 2021

Samsung ranks 2nd in European wearables market in Q1: report

Samsung Electronics Co. was the second-largest vendor of wearable devices in Europe in the first quarter of the year, although its market share declined as archrival Apple Inc. expanded its presence. Samsung posted a 16.1 percent market share in the January-March period in the European market, down from a 16.8 percent share a year earlier, according to the latest report from market researcher International Data Corp. (IDC). The South Korean tech giant shipped 3.5 million wearable products in

June 17, 2021