Asian economic growth will ease slightly to just under 8 percent for the next two years as the region continues a solid recovery, the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday, although rising food prices threatened to throw more people into poverty.Korea’s economy will grow 4.6 percent this year on the back of recovering domestic demand and export conditions, it predicted.The Manila-based lender said

GM Korea Co., the Korean unit of U.S. automaker General Motors Co., unveiled the new Chevrolet Captiva sports utility vehicle in Korea on Tuesday.The new Captiva is the first Chevrolet SUV to be launched here since GM Korea, formerly GM Daewoo Auto & Technology, decided to replace all its GM Daewoo vehicles with Chevrolet models.The Captiva is the fifth Chevrolet vehicle to be launched here with t

The stalled sale of Hynix Semiconductor Inc. is likely to speed up as creditors of the chip maker are considering selling new shares to resume efforts to unload their stakes, market watchers said Tuesday.Creditors of Hynix plan to resume the process to sell a 15 percent stake in the world’s No. 2 computer memory chip maker following a set of failed attempts to sell it. Investors have been wary of

Korean companies expect to step up cooperation with Malaysian businesses in the green energy sector, the head of a leading local business organization said Tuesday.“We want further cooperation (between the two countries’ companies) in the green energy sector such as in biofuels and batteries for electrical vehicles,” said Sohn Kyung-shik, chief of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI),

Korea’s government budget deficit and liabilities in 2010 came in at less than previously forecast, thanks mainly to faster-than-expected growth in Asia’s fourth-largest economy, the Finance Ministry said on Tuesday.The government debt grew more than 30 trillion won ($27.6 billion) last year from a year earlier as the government had to expand borrowing to fill its budget shortfalls.According to a

Unlisted subsidiaries of Korea’s leading family-controlled conglomerates depend heavily on international trading for their sales, data showed Monday, raising concerns over conglomerates’ attempts to transfer wealth and dodge taxes.Twenty unlisted firms, whose biggest shareholders are the heirs of the group owners, saw their combined sales from internal transactions reach 3.42 trillion won ($3.1 bi

The head of KB Financial Group Inc. said Monday that its flagship banking unit plans not to unload shares in the parent group in the local market in a bid to minimize its market impact.Korea’s top lender, Kookmin Bank, bought about 21 percent stake in its parent, KB Financial Group, in September 2008 when the group was created. By banking law, the bank is required to unload around 9 percent stake

Korea plans to spend 1.03 trillion won ($947 million) this year to promote renewable energy development research and nuclear safety projects, the government said Monday.The amount represents a 3.1 percent gain from 1.01 trillion won spent on energy R&D in 2010. The sum is equal to 6.9 percent of the government’s overall R&D plan of 14.9 trillion won set aside for this year.The Ministry of Knowledg

A majority of foreign importers of Korean goods expect the country’s exports to remain solid in the second quarter on increased competitiveness, a poll showed Monday.The index measuring the outlook of the country’s exports in the April-June period came to 57.5, compared with 52.7 tallied for the previous quarter, according to the survey by the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA).The se

Korea’s won climbed to a 30-month high and bonds declined after the U.S. jobless rate unexpectedly dropped to a two-year low in March, spurring optimism that a global recovery is gaining momentum.Overseas investors increased their holdings of Korean shares for a 13th day, the longest streak of net purchases this year. The nation’s foreign-exchange reserves rose to $298.62 billion at the end of Mar

Korean banks saw total earnings from their overseas operations jump 28.8 percent last year from a year earlier thanks to an increase in interest income, the financial regulator said Monday. Net income by 92 overseas units and branches operated by 11 local banks stood at $369.1 million in 2010, compared with $286.4 million in the previous year, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).T

Foreign investors cut holdings of local shares for the second straight month in March amid worries over political unrest in the Middle East region, the financial regulator said Monday.Foreigners sold a net 772 billion won ($709.4 million) of Korea’s listed shares last month, further reducing local share holdings following their net selling of 3.72 trillion won in February, the Financial Supervisor

Korea’s deposit insurance agency said Monday it plans to put most of the seven suspended savings banks up for sale from as early as this month as part of the country’s widening efforts to revamp the ailing financial segment.In February, the country’s financial regulator Financial Services Commission (FSC) suspended the savings banks, including top player Busan Savings Bank and its four affiliates,

Four Korean companies have pulled out from the nation’s consortium planning to bid for a contract to build and operate a bullet train network in Brazil, company officials said. The four companies, including Hyundai Amco Co. and Kolon Engineering & Construction Co., notified the consortium of some 20 firms last week that they pulled out, citing an uncertainty in financial prospects for the Brazilia

Korean builders’ domestic orders are expected to inch down this year due to a property market slump and economic uncertainties both at home and abroad, a report said Monday. According to the report by the Construction and Economy Search Institute of Korea, builders are likely to win domestic orders worth a combined 102.7 trillion won ($94.5 billion) this year, down 0.5 percent from a year ago. Bui

Hynix Semiconductor Inc., the world’s No. 2 maker of computer memory chips, said Monday that it has developed an advanced DDR4 dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chip and will start mass production in the second half of 2012. Hynix developed the 2-gigabit DDR4 DRAM device based on 30-nanometer class process technology, it said in a statement. The energy-efficient DDR4 DRAM transfers data twice as

The Fair Trade Commission said Sunday it fined nine Taekwang Group companies 4.6 billion won ($4.23 million) for illegally supporting one of its affiliates. The watchdog referred three of them to the prosecution for investigation. It is the first punishment of conglomerates since the FTC pledged last week to toughen its crackdown on irregular inter-affiliate transactions which conglomerates have o

Groupon Korea, the new kid on the Korean social networking commerce scene, brushes off the worries and sniping about its somewhat subdued entry. “All of our options are open, and we want to try new things and experiment to get the gist of what works and what doesn’t,” said Hwang Hee-seung, Groupon’s chief executive told The Korea Herald in an interview.And the experiments will go on, said the 27-y

Debts owed by the government, individuals and companies in Korea reached a record high last year, data showed on Sunday, raising concerns that the high level of debts could derail the economy off the recovery track.According to data compiled by the Bank of Korea, their interest-bearing debts reached 2,586 trillion won ($2.37 trillion) at the end of last year, up 7.4 percent from 2,408 trillion won

The Friedrich Alexander University of Germany has launched its branch campus in Busan offering graduate programs in chemicals and biotechnology. The university, founded in 1743 and located in Erlangen and Nuremberg, Bavaria, is one of the world’s leading institutions for education and research of bio-chemical engineering. Its local campus is located at Busan Techno Park within Busan-Jinhae Free Ec