The nation's governing body of professional football on Friday approved a proposal by a local business conglomerate to found a new club for next season.In its board meeting, the K League gave the green light to Eland to launch a new team to be based in Seoul.     Eland, which operates about 250 affiliates in retail, apparels and food service, had first declared its intention to get into professional football in April.Eland will use the Jamsil Olympic Stadium in southern Seoul as its home base, a

Soccer Aug. 22, 2014

South Korea’s state-run utility giant Korea Electric Power Corp. is pushing ahead with an undersea power grid project between South Korea and Japan in an effort to export electricity to the neighboring country, according to a local media report on Friday. The project aims to connect South Korea’s second-largest metropolis of Busan via Tsushima (Daemado Island), a Japanese island situated between Korea and Japan, to Japan’s Kyushu Island, with a 200-kilometer undersea cable. A KEPCO official said

Industry Aug. 22, 2014

Unidentified hackers, suspected to be based in China, have been caught trying to steal data from media reporters covering South Korea's Ministry of National Defense, ministry officials said Friday."We've confirmed that a handful of reporters covering the ministry have received an e-mail which carries the malicious code this week," a ministry official said, explaining that once the email is opened, it automatically imbeds the virus code into the computer."The code embedded into the computer is me

Defense Aug. 22, 2014

South Korea’s card spending stood at around 50 trillion won ($48 billion) last month, up by 2.4 trillion won ― or 5.1 percent ― from the same period last year, according to the Credit Finance Association of Korea on Thursday. Though the spending rose, the on-year growth rate was still below the 7.2 percent recorded in July last year. The association said this was due to the nation’s prolonged economic downturn. “In recent months, consumers’ disposable income dropped because of rising apartment r

Aug. 21, 2014

The government is expected to unveil an improved corporate pension plan at the end of this year with an extension of corporate pension plans and deregulation on the of their operations.Under the proposed revision of the corporate pension system, Korean companies with over 300 employees will be obliged to run a retirement pension plan for their employees by 2016, and this will be expanded to all companies by 2024.State-run think tank Korea Development Institute proposed the improvements at the po

Industry Aug. 17, 2014

South Korea’s trade volume with Japan has seen a decline recently on the back of a weak yen and Seoul’s reduced reliance on importing industrial parts and materials from the country, according to the Korea International Trade Association. KITA said trade volume between the two nations had reached $42.9 billion in the first half of this year to record a 9.8 percent drop from the same period last year. The figure is the lowest since 2009, in the midst of the global financial crisis, when trade vol

Industry Aug. 14, 2014

Choi Kyung-hwan, the deputy prime minister for economic affairs and finance minister, urged economic ministers Friday to step up their efforts to help pass economic stimulus bills pending in the National Assembly. “Legislative support is needed from the National Assembly in order to revive the economy. However, many of the economic stimulus bills are still pending, dragging down the government’s push to jumpstart the slowing economy,” Choi said in an emergency meeting with economy-related minist

Industry Aug. 8, 2014

The Export-Import Bank of Korea said it has issued foreign currency bonds worth $1 billion to investors in the global market on Wednesday. The bank issued 5-year and 12-year bonds to raise $500 million with each, and their interest rates were 72.5 bps and 85 bps higher than U.S. government bonds, respectively. In particular, the 5-year bond’s interest rate is the lowest since the global financial crisis in 2008, the bank’s official said. Their interest rates are around 17.5 to 45 bps lower than

Industry Aug. 6, 2014