The board of KB Financial Group is expected to meet again Friday to discuss follow-up measures after dismissing the group’s chairman who is accused of a series of management lapses but refuses to step down. After hours of talks Wednesday that ended close to midnight, the board said it decided to dismiss Lim Young-rok. The board on Monday had recommended that he resign voluntarily, but Lim sued the regulating agencies who punished him in defiance, reasserting his innocence. The board will meet ag

Sept. 18, 2014

A United Nations agency for information and telecommunications will discuss the allocation of a global radio frequency for air-ground satellite communication following the failure of a painstaking multinational search to find a missing Malaysian airplane, government officials said Wednesday. The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Technology said the International Telecommunications Union will first address the issue when senior officials and experts gather for a conference to be held in the Sou

Technology Sept. 17, 2014

South Korea and China will hold what they hope will be the last round of negotiations for a bilateral free trade agreement next week, the South Korean trade ministry said Wednesday.The talks, slated from Monday through Friday in Beijing, will be the fifth this year. The two countries had planned on four rounds of negotiations.The trade agreement talks got a hard push in July when South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed on joint efforts to conclude the FTA wit

Sept. 17, 2014

Kia Motors’ all-new Sorento offers a sedan-like refined ride with a responsive driving experience that should give the carmaker a competitive edge in the global SUV market.The vehicle, lengthened by 95 millimeters bumper to bumper compared to the previous generation model, has better structural rigidity thanks to extensive use of high tensile steel and industrial adhesives in its construction.Its wheelbase, another factor that improves ride quality and passenger comfort, has grown 80 mm, with th

Industry Sept. 17, 2014

The South Korean government announced plans Wednesday to transform the country’s aging industrial complexes into advanced, attractive workplaces, especially for the younger working generation.To this end, the government and private companies will together raise a total of 1.2 trillion won ($1.16 billion) to create an “industrial complex innovation fund” that will be used to improve working and living conditions at industrial complexes, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.The

Sept. 17, 2014

South Korea’s state-run power provider Korea Electric Power Corp. said Tuesday that it will wrap up the bidding process for its main office property in southern Seoul this week and announce the new owner of the prime piece of real estate estimated to be worth over 3.33 trillion won ($3.22 billion).KEPCO said bids will be accepted until 4 p.m. Wednesday, with the winner to be announced at 10 a.m. the following day. It said the party that submits the highest bidding price will be selected.The land

Industry Sept. 16, 2014

LG Electronics, South Korea’s No. 2 maker of handsets, provided a teaser Tuesday of what looks to be its first flip-style smartphone. LG’s website showed a dim image of a flip-style handset dubbed the “LG Wine Smart.” If released, the Wine lineup will become the oldest existing handset brand in South Korea.First launched in 2007, LG’s Wine series has been one of the key brands in the local handset market. The latest model, Wine Phone 5, came out in April 2012 and ran on the second-generation net

Technology Sept. 16, 2014

Samsung Group’s de-facto head Lee Kun-hee, who has been hospitalized due to a heart attack since May, saw the value of his share holdings in the conglomerate plunge 7.19 percent from four months earlier, data showed Tuesday, with the decline led by Samsung Electronics’ lackluster performance.Lee’s holdings came to 10.6 trillion won ($10.2 billion) as of Friday, compared to the 11.5 trillion won posted on May 31, the data compiled by market tracker FnGuide showed. Along with smaller shares in oth

Technology Sept. 16, 2014

Many South Korean conglomerates will likely add the same number of employees or boost their hiring slightly in 2014 compared to the year before, a poll carried out by the lobbying group of large businesses showed Tuesday. According to the Federation of Korean Industries survey carried out on the top 300 large businesses in terms of sales, 52.9 percent said they will hire the same number of workers as in 2013, with 15.1 percent saying they will increase hiring.It said while 68 percent of companie

Industry Sept. 16, 2014

South Korean companies are expected to report weaker-than-expected earnings for the third quarter as Samsung Electronics, which wields enormous sway over the country’s overall corporate earnings chart, is likely to suffer another earnings shock and low oil prices hurt local refiners’ bottom lines, the latest data showed Tuesday.The operating profit estimate for 173 listed companies was reduced by 3.7 percent for the July-September period to 30.77 trillion won ($29.65 billion) as of Friday from a

Industry Sept. 16, 2014