KOTRA undertakes digital transformations for local, foreign businesses

Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) announced Monday that it would push digital transformation to provide quality services to local and foreign businesses. The agency said it would bring digital transformation into a wide range of tasks it manages. According to KOTRA, its customers can now easily access various types of market data that it has collected from its 125 offices in 82 different nations around the globe. The agency said the big data collected in different nations would

Aug. 31, 2020

Stronger ad rules begin for social media stars in Korea

Reinforced rules by South Korea’s antitrust regulator began to take effect Tuesday to prevent social media influencers from advertising products without telling viewers of their business ties with corporate sponsors. According to the Fair Trade Commission’s guidelines, the online streamers and social media influencers should explicitly disclose their business ties when they are provided with financial means to produce promotional posts or videos. The FTC said it revised old guidel

Aug. 31, 2020

More firms stand in regulatory blind spot: FTC

South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said Monday that an increasing number of companies occupy a regulatory blind spot that shields the owner families. Owners increased their shares through indirect investment from public corporations and overseas affiliates this year, it said. The Fair Trade Commission said it analyzed the stock ownership of the 64 largest groups and their 2,292 affiliates. Among the groups, the equity held by owner families amounted to 3.6 percent, down 0.3 percentage p

Aug. 31, 2020

Study suggests children’s potential for ‘silent COVID-19 spread’

The novel coronavirus infection is relatively unnoticeable in children, leaving them less likely to get diagnosed. And despite their lack of distinct symptoms, children with COVID-19 can shed the virus for as long as over two weeks, a recent study found, highlighting their potential role in spreading the disease silently in the community. The study published Aug. 28 in the Journal of the American Medical Association assessed 91 children with COVID-19 in Korea to find that only 8.5 percent of t

Aug. 31, 2020

Kakao Games likely to issue most successful IPO in Korea

The initial public offering of Kakao Games is likely to be the most successful market debut in South Korea’s history in terms of the number of applicants for its shares, according to market watchers on Monday. In the two-day book building for institutional investors that wrapped up on Thursday, a total of 1,745 domestic and foreign institutional investors participated in the tranche and bid for 11.28 million shares, or 70.49 percent of the total. Competition for stocks by institutional

Aug. 31, 2020

Incheon Airport projected to lose over W430b this year

Incheon International Airport Corp. is set to post an annual deficit of over 430 billion ($ 363 million) won this year, according to its latest projection Monday. As things stand in August, the airport is on course to be in the red this year, marking the first time in 17 years since 2003. The projection comes following a sharp drop in the number of flights and revenue during the first half of 2020, which saw its previous projected deficit grow over time since the first quarter. “The pro

Aug. 31, 2020

Authorities vow to bolster financial safety net for senior citizens

With the COVID-19 pandemic accelerating digitalization of the financial sector and magnifying risks for individual investors, financial authorities recently vowed to create a safe and friendly environment for senior citizens here. To help the elderly carry out smooth banking transactions, local lenders would be required to alert their customers when closing a brick-and-mortar branch with a high-proportion of senior customers, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said during a

Aug. 31, 2020

Korean pension funds cushion pandemic impact in H1

South Korea’s pension funds took positive returns in the first half of this year, as they managed to weather the impact of the novel coronavirus on financial markets across the globe, disclosures showed Monday. The National Pension Service, Korea’s largest public pension fund with 752.2 trillion won ($635.5 billion) assets under management, posted a 0.5 percent return Friday as its stock losses were offset by fixed-income assets and alternative investments. By asset classes, from

Aug. 31, 2020

JB Financial launches Vietnam-based brokerage firm JBSV

JB Financial Group said Monday it has launched a brokerage unit through its newly acquired Morgan Stanley Gateway Securities, a midsized brokerage firm headquartered in Hanoi, Vietnam. It has changed the company name to JB Securities Vietnam as part of a move to officially start operations, the group added.  Earlier in April, the banking group paid for its 100 percent stake in MSGS -- previously owned by global investment bank Morgan Stanley -- and recently received final approval from

Aug. 31, 2020

[News Focus] Semiconductor industry back in conservative mode

After successfully bolstering the supply side with aggressive investments over the last six months, the semiconductor industry is again in a conservative mode at least until the second quarter of next year, according to industry sources Monday. Such conservatism in making new investments is running deep across the memory market, in particular amid growing forecasts of slowing demand in the second half of the year. According to sources, the world’s two largest memory providers Samsung

Aug. 31, 2020

Hyundai Motor unveils Ioniq brand song with BTS

Hyundai Motor said Monday it will introduce brand song of its new electric vehicle Ioniq with boy band BTS. The brand song “Ioniq: I’m on it” will be distributed on the automaker’s global website at 7 p.m. on Monday. Hyundai Motor and BTS have been working together on various marketing activities for three years since the band was chosen as Palisade’s global PR ambassador in 2018. The automaker said the latest project aims to convey a vision of the infinite po

Aug. 31, 2020

[Monitor] Home transactions in metropolitan areas plunge

Home transactions in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province have plunged over the last three months, after the government introduced strict measures to stabilize real estate prices, including tax hikes and loan regulations, data showed Sunday. The number of apartment transactions in Seoul dropped to 1,923 in August from 15,589 in June, while that of Gyeonggi Province too decreased to 7,117 in August, from 34,899 in June. The housing prices, which the government aimed to rein in, remained flat. As of

Aug. 31, 2020

Seoul stocks open sharply higher on economic rebound hopes

South Korean shares opened sharply higher Monday on hopes of an economic rebound, despite the government's implementation of toughened social distancing measures. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) rose 22.97 points, or 0.98 percent, to 2,376.77 in the first 15 minutes of trading. Investor sentiment ran high in the wake of the US Fed Reserve's shift of stance signaling that it will stay accommodative for longer even if US inflation exceeds its target level of 2 percent.

Aug. 31, 2020

[Future of Plastic Cards] Through human-robot collaboration, Hyundai Card seeks digital transformation

This is the second installment in a series of articles, interviews and videos assessing the future of credit cards and the challenges ahead. -- Ed. On the ninth floor of Hyundai Card’s Card Factory, where 5 million plastic credit cards are produced every year, a barista named Billie makes coffee every day. The machine learning-powered robot, trained by award-winning Korean barista Lee Jong-hoon, has his own employee identification number: 410713. While the robot brews coffee, human c

Aug. 30, 2020

NTS vows full-scale probe into tax-dodging allegations against multinational companies

South Korea’s tax agency recently launched a full-scale investigation targeting 21 multinational companies suspected of evading taxes here. It is the agency’s first major task under its new leadership. While the tax agency declined to name the companies, several online platform operators and luxury fashion houses appear to be among its targets, according to local industry sources. The list includes Netflix Korea, Facebook Korea and Germany-based Delivery Hero, which owns two deliv

Aug. 30, 2020

SK invites battery biz partner Hyundai to Korea’s largest social value festival

Hyundai Motor Group Executive Vice Chairman Chung Euisun will give a congratulatory speech at this year’s “Social Value Connect,” the largest privately-held social value festival in Korea hosted by SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won. According to SK Group Sunday, SOVAC 2020 -- which will be held online from Sept. 1 to 24 -- will feature business leaders including Chung, Posco Chairman Choi Jung-woo and Shinhan Financial Group Chairman Cho Yong-byoung giving congratulatory speech

Aug. 30, 2020

Hyundai Motor to field 9 new vehicles in China by end of 2021

Hyundai Motor will launch nine new cars in China by the end of next year to seek a turnaround in its sluggish sales in the world’s biggest car market. South Korea’s largest automaker announced Sunday that, starting next month with sport utility vehicle Palisade, it will introduce three sedans, three recreational vehicles and two electric vehicles in the country through 2021 to rebound after sales there plummeted in recent years. The automaker’s three sedans include the new

Aug. 30, 2020

Samsung Display sold Suzhou LCD plant to CSOT

CSOT, a panel unit of Chinese home appliance maker TCL, acquired Samsung Display’s Suzhou LCD plant for $1.08 billion, making China the producer of half the world’s large LCDs, industry sources said Sunday. According to the sources, CSOT signed a deal with Samsung Display to acquire 60 percent of the Suzhou plant for $1.08 billion. The remaining 10 percent will be owned by the parent company, TCL, and 30 percent by the Suzhou city government. The Suzhou plant was responsible for

Aug. 30, 2020

[Photo News] Luxury goods sales surge

Shoppers look at luxury goods at Lotte Department Store in Jamsil, Seoul, in July. Department store sales of luxury brands jumped more than 30 percent last month, although overall sales declined due to the pandemic and the rainy season, government data showed Sunday. Analysts say people spent more of their savings on luxury goods because they were not allowed to travel abroad during the holiday season. (Photo: Yonhap)

Aug. 30, 2020

SK Broadband moves to innovate pay TV service

As competition in over-the-top and pay TV services market intensifies, SK Broadband is seeking to overhaul its solutions. The company said Sunday it has changed the brand name to Lovely B tv, while adding new features and contents to its platform to increase user experience, including artificial intelligence recommendation engine and Supernova, which is designed to improve the quality of image and sound source based on AI-deep learning algorithms. The company has also transformed the user exp

Aug. 30, 2020