POSCO, the world’s fourth-largest steelmaker, has been named the company with the best corporate governance structure in Korea. According to the steelmaker, it was so named by the Corporate Governance Service and the Korea Exchange on Friday. The company added that its filling of the audit committee with outside directors and other activities giving enhanced independence to auditors also contri...

The Korea Communications Commission turned down Friday KT Corp.’s proposal to end services for feature phone users by the end of this month. The state telecom regulator said it would defer giving the green light to KT’s scheme which would force what KCC cited as its remaining 810,000 2G mobile phone users to adopt 3G smartphones by the first half of this year. “Let’s put it off the discussion a...

Subsidiary firms of Korea’s mobile carriers are expected to meet resistance in joining the market for mobile virtual network operators as the state watchdog appears wary of letting them do so. In its general meeting on Friday, the Korea Communications Commission agreed to recommend that SK telink, a subsidiary of market leader SK Telecom, hold back from entering the MVNO market. SK telink, a fi...

The government said Thursday it plans to boost support for growth industries in the country’s provincial metropolitan areas by injecting 285 billion won ($265 million) this year. The program is the latest in a string of projects that the Ministry of Knowledge Economy has pushed since 2009 to develop regional technology hubs. Under the plan, the ministry will fund nearly 20 billion won this year...

Local chambers of commerce join to press government to stick to tax policy Representatives of one of the nation’s top private economic organizations on Thursday called for the government and politicians to stay committed to tax reduction to help the corporate sector. “Tax reduction is necessary to enhance corporate competitiveness and attract foreign capital,” the heads of the country’s 71 regi...

The worldwide semiconductor market is forecast to expand 7.2 percent in 2011 from last year, driven by robust demand for smartphones and tablet PCs, a market researcher said Thursday. Revising up its earlier forecast, IHS iSuppli estimated that global semiconductor revenues will reach $325.9 billion this year, compared with $304.1 billion in 2010. It previously estimated 7 percent annual growth....

Samsung Electronics Co., the world’s No. 2 mobile-phone maker, said Thursday that it has released the Galaxy S2 smartphone in Japan through the country’s largest mobile carrier, hoping to build on the popularity of its earlier model. NTT DoCoMo Inc. has started sales of Samsung’s latest Android smartphone earlier in the day, Samsung said in a statement. The Korean company added that the latest ...

LG-Ericsson said Thursday that it hoped the launch of its Long Term Evolution network would give it the top spot in the country’s telecommunications industry. Lee Jae-ryung, chief executive officer of LG-Ericsson, said that the company expects to surpass its peak sales figure of 1.1 trillion won recorded in 2008 with the nationwide introduction of fourth generation LTE networks. “It’s difficult...

GS Caltex Corp., the nation’s No.2 oil refiner, on Wednesday said it has borrowed 870,000 barrels of diesel oil from reserves kept by the Korea National Oil Corp. This marks the first time in three years that the refiner has dipped into government fuel reserves. The borrowed fuel is expected to be released at local gas stations next week. GS Caltex has recently been unable to properly provide ...