South Korea said Tuesday it's seeking closer ties with Indonesia on defense goods as part of efforts to expand its overall arms trade.Defense Minister Song Young-moo plans to discuss the issue when he meets his Indonesian counterpart Ryamizard Ryacudu in Seoul later in the day, according to his office.He's on a trip to South Korea to attend a delivery ceremony for a submarine built by the local defense contractor Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co.Indonesia has ordered three diesel-elec

HONGSEONG -- A Nepalese worker died from a tick-borne disease earlier this week in South Korea's first case of the illness contracted by a man in his 20s, the South Chungcheong provincial government said Tuesday.The 24-year-old man, who had been working at a livestock farm in Hongseong, a town in South Korea's central province of South Chungcheong, was diagnosed with severe fever and thrombocytopenia syndrome, or SFTS, and treated for the disease before he died on Sunday. This undated file photo

Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday its Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 Plus smartphones won a top-level certificate from an environmental evaluation conducted in the United States.The South Korean tech giant said the smartphones won the Gold rating from the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, approved by the Green Electronics Council and Underwriters Laboratories. (Yonhap)It marks the first time for smartphones to win a EPEAT certificate.The test focuses on various environmental aspects

Netmarble Games, South Korea's top mobile game developer, said the number of pre-registrations for its mega-hit title, "Lineage 2: Revolution," in Japan surpassed the 1 million mark Tuesday.Netmarble started accepting the preorders for the mobile role-playing game from the official website for Japanese players on April 28 before its launch during the third quarter of this year, the company said. The exact launch date has yet to be decided."It is very unusual for a mobile game to receive more tha

Hanwha Group said Tuesday it will turn 850 temporary workers into permanent employees by the first half of next year, a decision that will mostly benefit young workers at its services affiliates.Group officials said each affiliate will begin work evaluations of each temporary worker from next month for a phased transfer to permanent positions. About 660 of these workers are in the services sector of the group, including duty-free shop operator Hanwha Galleria and leisure affiliate Hanwha Hotels

Renault Samsung Motors Corp., the South Korean unit of French carmaker Renault S.A., said Tuesday its July sales jumped 26 percent from a year earlier on increased exports. Renault Samsung sold a total of 23,295 vehicles in July, up from 18,483 units a year earlier, due to strong demand for its SM6 flagship sedan and the QM3 subcompact SUV, the company said in a statement. Domestic sales rose 7.8 percent on-year to 7,927 cars from 7,352 units a year earlier. Exports climbed 38 percent to 15,368

SsangYong Motor Co. said Tuesday its July sales fell 11 percent from a year earlier on lower overseas demand. The South Korean unit of Indian carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. sold 11,413 vehicles in July, down from 12,784 units a year earlier, the carmaker said in a statement.  (Yonhap)Domestic sales rose 15 percent to 8,658 units last month from 7,546 units a year earlier. But exports plunged 47 percent to 2,755 cars from 5,238, the statement said. In the January-July period, the maker of the

Business sentiment for South Korea's construction industry fell in July from the previous month due mainly to a decrease in new orders, a poll showed Tuesday.The construction business survey index came to 85.4 last month, down five points from a month earlier and snapping a three-month gaining streak, according to the survey by the Construction and Economy Research Institute of Korea.A reading hovering below 100 indicates that builders pessimistic about the current state of the construction indu

An affiliate of South Korean biopharmaceutical firm Celltrion Inc. said Tuesday that its biosimilar drug Truxima accounts for 30 percent of the Britain market.Truxima, a reference to Roche's Mabthera, also known as Rituxan, has become a presence in the European country since its launch in April, Celltrion Healthcare said.Celltrion`s headquarters in Songdo, Incheon (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)In February, the European Medicines Agency accepted Celltrion's application to sell the antibody bios

GM Korea Co., the South Korean unit of General Motors Co., said Tuesday its July sales fell 9.9 percent from a year earlier due to weak domestic sales.  GM Korea sold a total of 41,406 vehicles in July, down from 45,977 units tallied a year earlier, the company said in a statement.  (Yonhap)Exports declined 3.2 percent to 30,605 from 31,617 over the cited period. Domestic sales also plunged 25 percent to 10,801 units from 14,360 during the same period, it said. The sales slump was mainly affecte

Venture capitalists continued to pour money into South Korean startup companies in the first half of this year on hopes of lucrative returns, government data showed Tuesday. The investment in startups was tallied at 992.6 billion won ($887 million) in the January-June period, up 1.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.The ministry said 369.8 billion won, or 37.3 percent of the total, went to companies set up within the last three years, while

Lotte Duty Free, South Korea's top duty-free operator, said Tuesday it has pulled out of an airport in the capital city of Indonesia last month, after an unsuccessful bid to extend the contract.Lotte's duty-free store in Jakarta International Airport closed Monday after its contract expired, the company said. Opened in January 2012, it was the firm's first overseas store. The closure comes at a time when local duty-free stores are struggling to cope with the diplomatic row between Seoul and Beij

South Korea's Cabinet on Tuesday approved a measure to remove import tariffs on egg products in the latest effort to resolve a supply shortage sparked by outbreaks of bird flu here, officials said.The move will allow local companies to import 28,000 tons of eggs -- 13,000 tons of shell eggs and 600 tons of hatching eggs and 14,400 tons of other products -- without tariffs up until the end of this year.The government said egg products can be brought in from Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, the Ne

South Korea on Tuesday renewed its call for North Korea to accept its latest dialogue offer, vowing to continue "multifaceted" efforts to resolve issues of war-torn families and ease border tensions.The call came as North Korea fired a second intercontinental ballistic missile in less than a month Friday, spurning Seoul's proposals for talks.Tuesday is the day on which the government offered to hold Red Cross talks to resume reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War."The governme

South Korean shares move up late Tuesday morning, paring earlier losses, helped by a buying-spree by institutions.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 23.94 points, or 1 percent, to 2,462.65 as of 11:20 a.m. The broad index started lower, but soon turned positive as institutional buyers scooped up market heavyweights.Most large caps traded in positive terrain with market kingpin Samsung Electronics adding 0.36 percent and SK hynix, a major chipmaker, moving up 0.3 percent. Leadin

A dozen F-16 Fighting Falcons of the US Air Force will be deployed temporarily to South Korea in a demonstration of the Pentagon's continued commitment to regional security, the Pacific Air Forces said Tuesday.The aircraft and around 200 airmen from the 176th Fighter Squadron, Wisconsin Air National Guard are scheduled to arrive at Kunsan Air Base, some 180 kilometers south of Seoul, for a four-month rotation.The PACAF said they are due here in August but stopped short of revealing the exact sch

The number of people in South Korea with financial assets worth more than 1 billion won ($892,295) rose 14.8 percent on year to 242,000 last year, thanks to the robust stock market, a report showed Tuesday. According to the annual survey by KB Financial Group Inc.'s research institute, people classified as wealthy held a total of 552 trillion won worth of financial assets in 2016, accounting for 16.3 percent of total financial assets owned by all households. Compared with a year ago, the ratio w

South Korea's exports continued their rally for nine straight months by rising a sharp 19.5 percent last month on brisk overseas sales of semiconductors, the trade ministry said Tuesday.Outbound shipments came to $48.85 billion in July, up from $40.88 billion tallied a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.The country's exports have been on a steady rise since November led by an upturn in oil prices and recovering global trade. The country posted double-digit expo

South Korea's central bank said Tuesday that it has set up a system meant to detect overseas financial instability at an early stage in the latest move to better cope with any possible external shock that could affect Asia's fourth-largest economy.The Bank of Korea said about 40 staff members will gather information to assess and analyze the resilience and vulnerabilities of the financial system by meeting with relevant officials of financial institutions, international organizations and major c

Hyundai Mobis Co. ranked seventh in a global car parts makers' sales rankings last year, down one notch from a year earlier, due to lower demand from its captive buyers, an industry association said Tuesday. The country's biggest auto parts maker by sales took seventh place, with sales of 30.5 trillion won ($27.2 billion) in 2016, the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association said, citing data from Automotive News in the United States. Back in 2006 when Automotive News began to announce the ran