Seoul’s Myeong-dong was ranked the world’s ninth most expensive shopping district in terms of annual rent, slipping one place from 2010, a report showed Thursday. A Myeong-dong street in downtown Seoul. (Park Hyun-koo/The Korea Herald)According to a report compiled by the real estate services provid

Local conglomerates will hire a record number of new employees and increase investments this year, the Federation of Korean Industries said Wednesday.At a meeting in Seoul with President Lee Myung-bak on shared-growth, the FKI said the country’s 30 largest conglomerates have plans to hire 124,000 ne

The first half net profit of some of the country’s largest companies dropped more than 7 percent from a year ago, while one in 10 companies posted net losses, damped by global economic slowdown, data showed Tuesday.According to the Korea Exchange and the Korea Listed Companies Association, the combi

Troubled Prime Group companies headed for workout programThe fates of Prime Development Co. and affiliate Sam An Corp. will be decided Friday with their creditors set to decide on whether to allow them to begin debt workouts, sources said Tuesday.According to industry sources, Nonghyup and other cre

LS Cable and System has become the first Korean firm to develop a portable electric vehicle charger, the company announced Monday.According to the company, the charger supplies 3.3 kilowatts of electricity to the vehicle using the standard outlet installed in homes. The device can fully recharge bat

The chemicals company BASF SE will begin looking ofr a Korean firm to invest in, on Tuesday as part of the Global Alliance Project Series program, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy announced Monday. Through the program, the German chemicals giant will present investment plans to local battery and or

POSCO on Friday began works on a children’s center in Zimbabwe as part of its efforts to strengthen corporate social responsibility programs in Africa.The steelmaker’s related projects in the region began in July when it collaborated with the Korea International Cooperation Agency to send volunteers

Ssangyong Engineering and Construction Co. on Wednesday signed the contract to build part of the Southern Coastal Corridor Project that runs from Vietnam to Thailand, reentering the Vietnamese market after 11 years.Since the completion of the Dami Dam in Bao Lac in the northern part of the Southeast

Conglomerate shores up future with resource and petrochemicals businessSK Group has come to be the country’s third largest conglomerate fueled by its petrochemical and telecommunications businesses.The two sectors are often referred to as the conglomerate’s two pillars, but the group has now turned

SK Group, in addition to being the country’s third-largest conglomerate, has been one of the staunchest supporters of social enterprises with its chairman Chey Tae-won taking part in related activities. “The chairman believes that simple donations have limited efficacy in solving social problems,” a

Carrier sees advantage in 4th-generation techThe country’s largest mobile telecom services provider SK Telecom has been putting CDMA and WCDMA technologies to commercial use ahead of its peers both in and outside the Korean market.Since 2005, the company has invested funds equivalent to more than 14

By Choi He-suk POSCO began mass producing steel plates coated using ultraviolet rays on Wednesday, becoming the world’s first steelmaker to use the method on commercial scale. Named POSCOTE-UV, short for POSCO smart coating technology-ultraviolet, is more resistant to scratches and its surface is br

 The country’s main electricity supplier Korea Electric Power Corp., which marked its 50th anniversary this year, is renewing its efforts to become a socially responsible company.In addition to drawing up plans for becoming one of the world’s top five energy and engineering firms by 2020, the c

Foreign investors saw the second largest returns on record during the first half of the year, Bank of Korea data showed Monday.According to the central bank, foreign investors’ profits for the first six months of the year rose 6.6 percent from the same period last year to come in at over $8.33 billi

Ssangyong Engineering and Construction Co., which has been focusing on luxury building projects in its overseas operations, is making headway in the growing market for luxury residential properties in Malaysia. Last week, the company announced that it won a $145 million contract to build two luxury

 The quality of life in Korea is one of the lowest among members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and G20 nations, a Korea Development Institute, report showed Sunday.According to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance, the KDI report on developing indexes for measurin

Four employees of Deutsche Bank AG and Deutsche Securities Korea have been indicted on charges of gaining unlawful profits by manipulating stock prices, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office said Sunday. Of the four, three work at Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kong branch including one executive.The

Former Supreme Court Justice Yang Seung-tae was named the new chief justice of the Supreme Court on Thursday, the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.Yang, 63, had been a justice at the top court from 2005 to February 2011. His term as the chief justice will also run six years. If approved, Yang

Korean builder strives to become one of the world’s 100 largest construction firmsHanwha Engineering and Construction Corp. began work on the world’s largest domed arena in the Philippines on Thursday.The work for the $175 million contract, signed on Aug. 4, got underway in a ceremony attended by Ha

A South Korean state-run think tank on Thursday unveiled a North Korean court ruling sentencing a man to public execution, suggesting the totalitarian regime uses the punishment as part of its legal system.The Korea Institute for National Unification (KINU) said it included images of the document in