Hyundai Heavy Industries, the nation’s top shipbuilder, won a $2 billion deal to build two offshore facilities for France-based oil company Total, the company said in a press release. In the deal with Total’s overseas branch in the Republic of Congo, Hyundai Heavy will build a floating production unit for $1.3 billion and an offshore platform for $700 million.The two offshore facilities will be installed in the Moho Nord oil field, about 80 kilometers from Pointe-Noire on the country’s southern

Industry March 26, 2013

President Park Geun-hye called for a change in the nation’s economic paradigm to foster coprosperity between conglomerates and small and medium-sized firms.She made the instruction during policy briefings from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Small and Medium Business Administration at Cheong Wa Dae on Monday.“Our economy reliant on big companies should be transformed into an economic structure where exports and domestic consumption are boosted simultaneously, and conglomerates

March 25, 2013

Shareholders of Hyundai Merchant Marine, the nation’s No. 2 shipping firm, approved a controversial plan Friday to increase the limit of preferred shares it can issue, despite opposition from the second-largest shareholder, Hyundai Heavy Industries.The approval means that Hyundai Group, HMM’s largest shareholder, is expected to tighten its control over the shipping company in financial trouble, as it will be able to sell the preferred shares to a third party to secure funds, industry analysts sa

Industry March 22, 2013

New Korea Forest Service Minister Shin Won-sop revealed that the government agency will soon launch a “carbon sink” program through forestation.In a written interview with The Korea Herald, the minister also explained the importance of forests and the history of the nation’s policy change on tree-planting, stressing the benefits forests give to the public.He said the KFS has been also enhancing overseas tree-planting activities with the aim of increasing long-term domestic timber supply, securin

March 20, 2013

Thursday marks the first International Forest Day that the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed in December last year to encourage all U.N. member countries to organize forest-related activities, including tree-planting campaigns.This new annual global celebration of forests builds on the success of the International Year of Forests in 2011 and provides a platform to raise awareness of the importance of forests and trees outside forests.On the first International Day of Forests, countries

Industry March 20, 2013

This is the fourth in a series of case studies on the nation’s leading state-run companies which have made success stories overseas. ― Ed.KOGAS, which has imported LNG and supplied imported gas to local power companies since its foundation in 1983, last Thursday hosted a groundbreaking ceremony in Maputo, capital of Mozambique, in southeast Africa for its new overseas business project. Under the project, KOGAS will construct a 59-kilometer gas pipeline by October this year in Maputo and distribu

March 19, 2013

BERLIN ― The Fukushima nuclear disaster has affected the world’s nuclear energy policy for the past two years. Countries such as Germany have since undergone drastic changes in their nuclear energy policy in response to rising concerns over the safety of nuclear power plants. In May 2011, two months after the Fukushima nuclear accident, the German government immediately decided to shut down eight aged nuclear power plants. In July, Europe’s biggest economy announced that it would close its nine

Industry March 18, 2013

The nation’s working-age population is expected to fall after peaking in 2021, a state-run think tank said on Sunday.The nation’s labor force participation rate, an indicator for the size of the working-age population of an economy, is forecast to hit a record high of 61.6 percent before falling steadily, the Korea Development Institute said. It added the rate was likely to fall to the 50 percent range in 2030, which means Korea will face a shortage of labor. An aging population and low birth ra

March 17, 2013

Kim Keun-ho, the CEO of the state-run Korea Water Resources Corp., or K-water, and four employees received the Royal Order of Sahametrei, a knight-rank medal, by the Cambodian government for their dedication to the water resource management project in Cambodia, the company said on Wednesday. The order is a medal of honor conferred primarily on foreigners who have rendered distinguished services to the King of Cambodia and to the nation. K-water has completed eight water resource management-relat

Industry March 6, 2013

For Korean trade union members, spring is a tough season as they traditionally undergo collective bargaining with company management over annual wages and other working conditions. The collective bargaining period often turned sour and violent in the past decades. Winds of change arrived in the nation’s industrial relations in the early 2000s when labor relations evolved into cooperative or value-creating ones, following the confrontational period in the 1980s and 1990s. “LG Electronics started

March 5, 2013