Korea Electric Power Corp. has adopted a series of cost-cutting measures to offset its deficit caused by the nation’s below-cost electricity rates.Officials at the state-run company said they have saved about 1.4 trillion won ($1.2 billion) on average annually from in-house measures over the past four years. The cost-saving measures included a voluntary return of salaries of executives in 2008 and a wage freeze of employees and executives in 2009 and 2010.  KEPCO has also downsized its organizat

Aug. 23, 2012

STX Group, a Korean shipbuilding and trading conglomerate, raked in $3.8 billion in the first half of this year from overseas deals for constructing 70 liquefied natural gas carriers and container carriers alone. With a 30 percent on-year growth in sales, the group has steadily won bids from the world’s major three shipbuilding markets ― Korea, China and Europe ― amid the unfavorable business climate in the wake of the European debt crisis.The group’s Chinese operation, STX Dalian, kicked off th

Industry Aug. 20, 2012

Some wire home 90 percent of profits while making zero charity donationsFailing to bear corporate social responsibility ethics among foreign luxury brands has prompted criticism from both consumers and the business community. The Financial Supervisory Service and online conglomerate tracker chaebul.com released financial reports in August of foreign luxury brands’ operating in Korea. Foreign luxury brands saw a large-scale increase in sales by about 270 percent, from 1.42 trillion won ($1.25 bil

Aug. 20, 2012

Daelim Industrial Co. will be taking applications to buy units in its newly built apartment complex Yangdeok e-Pyunhansesang in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, from Aug. 17, the housing builder said on Wednesday. Built on about 32,500 square meters of land, the new complex has 637 apartments with five different areas ranging from 84 to 165 square meters. Daelim says that the Yangdeok region will form a new residential belt, connecting the 1.1-million-square-meter area with 7,570 households an

Industry Aug. 16, 2012

BMW AG and Hyundai Motor Co. outperformed other domestic and foreign auto companies in terms of operating margin in the first half of 2012, an auto research institute reported on Wednesday. According to the study conducted by the private Korea Automotive Research Institute, or KARI, German automaker BMW and Korean automaker Hyundai Motor vied closely with operating margins of 11.6 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively.Kia Motors Corp., the nation’s second-largest carmaker, won third place with

Mobility Aug. 15, 2012

The Asan Nanum Foundation announced Tuesday that it has selected the winners of its first annual entrepreneurship competition that commemorates Chung Ju-yung, the late founder of Hyundai Group. “Through the competition we became certain that what young people truly desire is not government-granted financial assistance, but the free ground to make decisions and exert their own potential,” said Rep. Chung Mong-joon, who is one of the sons of Hyundai Group’s founder and set up the charity organizat

Aug. 15, 2012

ULAN BATOR ― On a vast expanse of grassy meadows in the suburbs, some 25 kilometers east of the Mongolian capital, a group of local teenagers shout and laugh while playing basketball and volleyball at a campsite.As one adult tells them it is time for their next class, they wrap up their games and rush to a one-story building on top of a hill overlooking the river, the mountains and a couple of Mongolian traditional nomadic dwellings, or yurts.The East-West Cultural Development Cooperation Counci

Aug. 15, 2012

Kumho Tire has provided an injured Vietnamese worker with months of rehabilitation and medical treatment, so that he can return to work at the company’s plant in the Southeast Asian country and support his family, company officials said on Wednesday.The officials said Kumho Group chairman Park Sam-koo gave full support to Truong Vinh Thuan, who was at risk of being permanently paralyzed after a work accident in April.The worker was operating the power system at the Vietnamese plant when the top

Aug. 15, 2012

The number of Korean vacationers leaving the country made a steep increase despite the economic slowdown at home, the nation’s two leading travel agencies said on Tuesday. Hanatour Service Inc. and Modetour agreed that the unusual heat is driving people away to the beaches in the Americas and Southeast Asia for a cool summer. The Olympic Games boosted summer breaks in Europe as well, they said. According to statistics from the two tourism giants, the number of vacationers who used these two agen

Aug. 14, 2012

Asiana Airlines signed a memorandum of understanding with the nation’s leading online auction and commerce site G-market on adding a new flight mileage policy on Monday.According to the expanded mileage policy starting from Aug. 13, G-market customers who enter the e-shopping site directly at www.gmarket.co.kr can accumulate mileage points that correspond to the amount of their purchase. The new mileage policy is compatible with other G-market offers such as “G Mileage” and “G Stamp.”Before the

Aug. 13, 2012