GM Korea workers continue partial strike over wage talks

Unionized workers at GM Korea Co. said Wednesday that they will continue their partial strike this week for higher wages despite the company's statement that it may reconsider planned investments in its plants. GM Korea's daytime and night-duty workers will stage a four-hour strike from Wednesday to Friday, while continuing to refuse to work overtime during the week and on the weekend, union spokesman Cho Ha-soo said over the phone. The daytime and night workers already held two rounds of par

Nov. 11, 2020

S. Korea's Oct. job loss largest in 6 months amid pandemic

South Korea reported the sharpest on-year fall in jobs in six months in October, extending its job losses to an eighth month amid the protracted pandemic, data showed Wednesday. The number of employed people reached 27.09 million last month, 421,000 fewer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea. Job losses increased from an on-year fall of 392,000 in September. The tally marked the sharpest on-year decline since April, when the country shed 476,000 jobs due to

Nov. 11, 2020

Jeju Air Q3 net losses widen on virus impact

Jeju Air, South Korea's biggest low-cost carrier, said Tuesday its net losses widened in the third quarter from a year earlier due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the airline industry. Net losses deepened to 66.8 billion won (US$60 million) in the three months that ended in September from 30.14 billion won in the same period of last year, the company said in a statement. "Suspended flights on profitable international routes amid the pandemic continued to weigh on the quarterly res

Nov. 10, 2020

Bridge Biotherapeutics regains lung disease pipeline

German pharma giant Boehringer Ingelheim has returned Bridge Biotherapeutics’ BBT-877, a novel drug pipeline for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, the South Korean company said Tuesday. Bridge Biotherapeutics will regain full global rights to the pipeline. It does not have to return the 45 million euro ($53.22 million) down payment. BI’s decision to terminate the research was based on evidence of toxicity, Bridge Biotherapeutics explained in a regulatory filing, adding that the comp

Nov. 10, 2020

‘Pfizer one of many vaccines needed to combat COVID-19’

Pfizer’s positive clinical phase 3 midterm report of its COVID-19 mRNA vaccine lends optimism to studies worldwide working to develop an armor against the pandemic, pharmaceutical industry insiders in Korea opined Tuesday. “The US company’s stride does not mean that other vaccine pursuits are meaningless or futile at all,“ one of the insiders mentioned. With the remarkable feats being achieved through the endeavors of various global pharmas, COVID-19 vaccines are taki

Nov. 10, 2020

Posco completes air-pollutant-cutting facility in Pohang

South Korean steel maker Posco said Tuesday it held a completion ceremony for a facility to reduce pollution at its Pohang steel mill’s sinter plant. According to Posco, its sinter plants are where the steel producer mixes iron ore fines with other fine materials at high temperatures into sintered ores, which can then be used to make steel. The process creates air pollution, including nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides, which are a source of fine dust. The new facility converts the n

Nov. 10, 2020

Creditors invite bidders for STX Offshore

Mid-sized shipyard STX Offshore & Shipbuilding Co. said Tuesday that its creditors led by the Korea Development Bank (KDB) have invited preliminary bidders to sell their stake in the shipbuilder. On Monday, the company made public its plan on its website to woo investors. Ernst & Young Han Young, the sale manager for the deal, will finalize the bidding by Nov. 23. The KDB-led creditors wholly own the shipyard after debt-for-equity swaps and a debt rescheduling program. STX Offshore

Nov. 10, 2020

S. Korea to remove ‘pro-colonial Japan’ artist’s work from coins, banknotes

South Korea is working on replacing its frequently used 100-won coins as the design includes a portrait drawn by an artist who was pro-Japanese during the colonial period, the country’s central bank said Tuesday. The historical figure whose face will be removed or redrawn is Admiral Yi Sun-sin, whose statue stands permanently in Seoul’s downtown Gwanghwamun Square. The naval hero from the Joseon Dynasty who scored dramatic victories against Japanese invaders in the southern seas

Nov. 10, 2020

Tourism, airline stocks soar on COVID vaccine breakthrough

Upon encouraging news on coronavirus vaccine testing in the US, stocks in travel, airline and retail sectors here surged, while stocks of contactless services providers and gold prices slid Tuesday. US pharmaceutical firm Pfizer announced Monday that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine, developed jointly with its German partner BioNTech, was more than 90 percent effective in preventing the virus in participants of its latest trial. Calling it a “great day for science and humanity,&rdquo

Nov. 10, 2020

Nvidia chips to fuel Hyundai self-driving push

Hyundai Motor Group said Tuesday it will mount Nvidia’s computer chips on all Hyundai Motor, Kia Motors and Genesis models starting from 2022 to help those vehicles process large amounts of real-time data. According to the world’s fifth-largest automotive group, Nvidia Drive chips will be installed in all vehicles to provide improved computing power required for running the connected car operating system, or ccOS, developed by Hyundai Motor. Hyundai’s ccOS allows vehicles t

Nov. 10, 2020

SK Innovation’s EV battery material subsidiary opens new separator factory in China

SK IE Technology, a wholly owned electric vehicle battery material subsidiary under SK Innovation, began the operation of a separator factory recently completed in Changzhou, China, the company said Tuesday. Equipped with an annual production capacity of 340 million square meters, the new plant will ramp up SKIET’s total capacity to 870 million square meters. When additional plants are completed in Poland and China, the figure will spike to 1.87 billion square meters by 2023. Separat

Nov. 10, 2020

SK Telecom launches subscription-based console bundle with Microsoft

SK Telecom, South Korea‘s leading telecommunications firm, said Tuesday that it has introduced a new subscription service for Microsoft‘s Xbox game console in South Korea. The new subscription service bundle is comprised of the latest edition of Microsoft’s Xbox -- the Xbox Series X or Series S -- and a 5G and cloud-based game streaming service, which offers around 100 games for the game console, as well as computers and mobile devices. According to SKT, Korea is currently

Nov. 10, 2020

Proxy advisers oppose KB's union-recommended outside directors

South Korea’s largest proxy adviser, alongside Institutional Shareholder Service and Glass Lewis, has urged KB Financial Group shareholders against the appointment of two outside directors apparently recommended by the firm’s labor union, industry sources said Tuesday. The Korea Corporate Governance Service has officially requested KB’s shareholders to vote against the appointment of Sustinvest CEO Ryu Young-jae and Seoul National University environmental studies professor Yun

Nov. 10, 2020

Seoul stocks up for 7th day on Dow's COVID-19 vaccine rally

The South Korean stock market extended its winning streak to a seventh session on Tuesday, as investor appetite for risk strengthened over better-than-expected efficacy of a COVID-19 vaccine by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer. The Korean won fell against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 5.63 points, or 0.23 percent, to close at 2,452.83. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.4 billion shares worth some 17.7 trillion won (US$15.9 billion), with gainer

Nov. 10, 2020

ECCK calls for prudent approach to low-polluting car policy

The European Chamber of Commerce in Korea's Passenger Vehicle Committee has called on the South Korean government to take a more prudent approach to the nation’s low-emission vehicle supply target at a press conference hosted on Tuesday. The low-pollution vehicle supply target system, which was initiated by the Ministry of Environment last year, is a system that obliges car sellers to sell a certain minimum percentage of low-emission vehicles. The government is also considering imp

Nov. 10, 2020

Hana Bank to adopt casual dress code

Hana Bank is set to allow employees to wear business-casual attire to create a relaxed working environment, industry sources said.  The lender has recently decided to adopt a more casual dress code as more than 80 percent of its employees surveyed were in favor of the plan. It has not decided yet when to implement the new dress code. The dress code transition is part of the financial company’s move to prove itself as an innovative bank. “To achieve innovation, the bank must c

Nov. 10, 2020

Less than 1% of banking done in person: data

Less than 1 percent of all banking transactions across the country were made in person, data showed Tuesday, suggesting an apparent change in the retail banking landscape favoring non-face-to-face services. In the first half of this year, the proportion of banking transactions carried out in person at bank branches accounted for 0.75 percent of the total. This was sharply down from 1.08 percent in 2019, continuing a downtrend that began in 2015, when the figure was 2.12 percent, said Rep. Yoon

Nov. 10, 2020

South Korea advised to keep an eye on Biden’s clean energy policy

South Korean businesses will need to keep an eye on US President-elect Joe Biden’s plans to invest in clean energy and on his softer approach to trade deals ultimately to take advantage of the incoming administration’s policies, the head of the Korea International Trade Association said Tuesday. “South Korean businesses should focus on how different the Biden administration will be from the Trump administration when it comes to economic and trade policy,” said KITA Chai

Nov. 10, 2020

S. Korea to decide on Delivery Hero's acquisition of Woowa next month

SEJONG -- South Korea's antitrust regulator plans to decide next month whether to approve a $4 billion deal by Germany's Delivery Hero to acquire the nation's top food delivery app operator, Woowa Brothers, officials said Tuesday. The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) said it has sent documents about an antitrust review to the German food delivery company. If Delivery Hero submits its opinion on the documents to the KFTC, the Korean regulator will make a decision on the deal on Dec. 9, KFTC

Nov. 10, 2020

S. Korean shipyards rank 1st in new orders for 4th straight month

South Korean shipbuilders ranked first in new global shipbuilding orders in October for a fourth straight month, far outpacing their Chinese rivals, industry data showed Tuesday. According to the data provided by global market researcher Clarkson Research Service, Korean shipyards clinched new orders totaling 720,000 compensated gross tons (CGTs), taking up 69 percent of the 1.04 million CGTs ordered globally in October. The South Korean shipbuilders were followed by Chinese shipbuilders wit

Nov. 10, 2020