New scheme suggested as alternative to controversial ‘profit-sharing’ plan The government will encourage big businesses to share the benefits of cost reduction and technology development with their smaller subcontractors, as an alternative scheme after conglomerates blasted its controversial profit-sharing plan. The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said that sharing benefits would be a more viable...

Korea Exchange Bank will convene a board meeting next week to determine whether to pay quarterly interim dividends, the bank said Tuesday, raising the chances of its biggest shareholder Lone Star Funds raking in profits. Board members are scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss the issue, and the potential dividend payout will be based on the bank’s first-quarter earnings due out on the same day,...

New orders won by South Korean major builders dropped 10 percent in the first quarter from a year ago mainly due to a slump in the domestic market, a trade association said Tuesday. According to the Korea Federation of Construction Contractors, 31 builders won new orders worth 18.8 trillion won ($17.6 billion) in the January-March period, compared with 20.9 trillion won a year ago. The builders...

Authorities look to stem risks from currency speculation The nation’s financial regulator and the central bank said Tuesday they would increase the number of banks dealing with foreign currency trading, which would be subject to their ongoing joint probe. The period of their joint inquiry into the foreign exchange banks will also be extended, according to the Financial Supervisory Service and t...

The use of Internet banking in South Korea rose 6.3 percent in the first quarter from three months earlier as more people conducted financial transactions online, the central bank said Tuesday. Online banking transactions reached an average of 38.7 million per day in the January-March period, compared with 36.4 million the previous quarter, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The data is based...

SK Telecom said Tuesday that it will invest an additional 300 billion won ($280.12 million) in network establishment this year, raising the total sum to 2.3 trillion won, up from 1.8 trillion won last year. This year’s investment portfolio, which amounts to 17.3 percent of expected sales for this year, is the largest amount ever chipped in by the country’s biggest mobile carrier. The company inv...

If President Benigno Aquino wonders why the Philippines isn’t shaking its junk-bond status, a visit to the local supermarket might set him straight. There, he will find that food prices are surging and pushing growing numbers of his people into extreme poverty ― the less-than-$1.25-a-day kind. The Manila-based Asian Development Bank says as many as 64 million more Asians may suffer this fate in ...

Global warming has made the protection of the environment a moral ― even a near-sacrosanct ― issue in the developed world. Environmental concerns have reached such a level that the creation of plants or industries that may do Mother Nature damage is being put on the backburner by governments, even in the implementation of economic development projects. In a country like Taiwan, it’s a problem of ...

The Seoul Subway Union’s exit last week from the “Minju Nochong,” a radical national umbrella union, and its leaders’ move to form a third national union herald drastic changes in the nation’s labor movement. Up to now, labor activities have long been competitively swayed by the two national bodies: Minju Nochong (the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions) and Hanguk Nochong (the Federation of Kor...

As it came after months of pro-democracy upheavals in the Muslim world this year, the news of the death of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid on his hideout in Pakistan allows a faint but positive outlook for an end to a decade of intercultural conflicts started by the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Yet, whoever shares this somewhat wishful thinking should be wary of retaliation by al-Qaida militants for the ...