A rapidly spreading fear over the omicron variant of the coronavirus has forced big corporations in South Korea to adopt stricter in-office quarantine guidelines again and restrict overseas business trips, casting a shadow over their business plans for next year.  An increase in confirmed omicron variant infections has pushed the South Korean government to tighten its eased quarantine rules under their ‘living with COVID-19’ scheme, which kicked off Nov. 1. Starting Monday, the

After COVID-19 forced many aspects of our lives to become more isolated, the world is making a gradual move to return to how we used to be. Commuting to work has resumed and team lunches have been revived, although people still wear their masks and transparent acrylic panels have been erected between people at the tables.  Although South Korea kicked off its “living with COVID-19” scheme with eased social distancing rules on Nov. 1, still today many are suffering from soc

  South Korean steelmaker Posco Group is pushing to establish a holding company to make a breakthrough in business expansion and eventually to boost its market valuation, industry sources said Wednesday. Posco, the country’s sixth-largest conglomerate in terms of assets, has been drawing a downward graph in stocks despite its record-high business result this year due to the booming steel industry during pandemic.  According to sources, Posco Group will table the issue of an es

South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission said Wednesday that its secretary general Shin Bong-sam has been elected as a bureau member of the OECD’s Competition Committee. According to OECD, major objective of OECD Competition Committee is to inform and encourage senior regulators and antitrust enforcers to act consistently on enforcement of competition laws.  The committee is comprised of representatives from 16 member countries which lead the enforcement of competition laws. A tot

Renault Samsung’s Renault 5 EV concept car has received this year’s Future Mobility of the Year award, the automaker said Tuesday.  The third annual award was set up by KAIST’s Cho Chun Shik Graduate School of Green Transportation and evaluated by global automotive journalists. Of 46 new concept cars unveiled from 2020 through the first quarter of 2021, Renault’s concept car has been picked based on the mobility tech and innovative service that can be useful for fu

Amid the global transition to electric vehicles, EV makers are moving fast to set up charging infrastructure in Korea not only to increase their sales but to gain dominance in a country where a no clear market leader has surfaced yet. For automakers, building recharging points, which are still in the nascent stage here in terms of both numbers and maintenance, has become pivotal to overcome EVs’ general and biggest weakness –- a short driving range.  According to the governmen

South Korean e-commerce company Coupang said Friday that it will hold a special event to celebrate the Black Friday shopping extravaganza.  This year’s event, which continues through Sunday, includes offering global products at a discount for those using its “Rocket Jikgu” overseas delivery service and the Rocket Delivery category that includes directly imported goods. A limited-time sale will also take place daily. Brands that are participating includes consumer electr

Hyundai Motor Group said Friday that its fully electric model Ioniq 5 has been picked as the German car of the year.  The judges, comprised of 20 automotive journalists working in Germany, evaluated the vehicle based on categories including practicality, driving performance, innovation, market fit as well as a separate riding test.  A total of 45 newly released cars competed for this year’s award. Except Ioniq 5, Peugeot 308, Kia EV6, Audi E-Tron GT and Porsche 911 GT3 made i

Hyundai Motor Group said Thursday it would test its Level 4 autonomous driving system in downtown Seoul under its new mobility service “RoboRide,” using its fully electric compact Ioniq 5 as early as next year. The Korean auto giant said running RoboRide will be set the grounds for the company’s advancement of self-driving tech, in a step toward the commercialization of uncrewed mobility services. “We’ve been developing autonomous driving technology for all to mov

South Korean manufacturers are seeking to expand their presence in the electric vehicle market through a partnership with Rivian, the burgeoning US electric vehicle maker that has been in the global spotlight for its potential to become the next Tesla. According to the industry, Posco International is supplying some 145 billion won ($122 million) of half shafts for 340,000 vehicles produced by Rivian. Domestic partner Erae AMS will work alongside it to begin delivering the ordered amount next

Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun made it official for the first time that the company plans to manufacture electric vehicles in the US, but questions are being raised over why the South Korean auto giant is not moving fast to do so. “Not starting next year, but we are planning to (make EVs in the US), so still looking for a timing,” said Chung, crossing a line against market speculation that the automaker’s EV production in its US factories is imminent.  “

Hyundai Motor Group, the country’s second-largest group by assets, on Monday pledged to hire 46,000 youths over the next three years. “It is our group’s duty to expand our business to create more jobs so the young people can make use of their talent,” said Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun during a meeting with Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum. “We will put a lot more effort to allow youths to execute their capabilities through collaborative projects involving

Market data showed Friday that LG Electronics has shipped out over 10 million of its premium OLED TV shipments since the launch in 2013, doubling from just a year ago amid a rapidly expanding market. The Korean TV maker shipped 899,000 TVs in the third quarter, a sharp rise by 80 percent on-year, and the most in a quarter, according to the data from market analysis company Omdia. LG said it expects this year’s total number of OLED TV shipments to surpass 4 million, double that of last y

Hite Jinro, the country’s biggest beer and soju maker in terms of market share, is expected to become the “main beneficiary” of the liquor industry as the country shifts back to normal under its “living with COVID-19” scheme, an industry analyst said Friday.  “With the resumption of entertainment facilities operating under the ‘living with COVID-19’ scheme, the recovery of related sectors in the metropolitan area is a sign of upward momentum

 Samsung Electronics unveiled its strategy to strengthen the foundry industry ecosystem as it announced new design tools and technologies crucial for 3-nanometer process for its foundry customers at a forum on Thursday. At its third annual Samsung Advanced Foundry Ecosystem forum held online, the chipmaker‘s foundry unit said it has also secured over 80 electronic design automation tools and technologies optimized for semiconductor design infra and package solution. It is pivotal

South Korean companies increased their third-quarter investment by 7 percent from last year, mostly led by those in the IT and electronics sector, market data showed Wednesday.  According to an analysis by CEO Score, 336 of the country’s top 500 corporations which released their Q3 performance reports executed investments totaling 124.4 trillion won ($105 billion) from July to September.  Such figure is 8.4 trillion won higher than a year ago. By business category, IT and elec

Taihan Cable & Solution, a maker of electric wires and steel products for electricity and communication, has clinched a $60 billion deal to supply medium voltage cables in California, the company said Monday. The contract, which calls for provision of the cables over the next three years until October 2024, is another megasized order the Korean firm has received in the US, following a $42 billion deal for ultrahigh voltage cables in September.  It puts the total orders the company has

South Korean firms have set out to secure urea or urea solution using their global networks with foreign partners in an effort to help alleviate the domestic shortage of an additive critical for diesel cars.  According to figures gathered by The Korea Herald, some 64 million liters of urea solution, or diesel exhaust liquid, has been sourced by the corporate sector.    The supply accounts for more than two-thirds of some 82 million liters of urea solution the government said woul

Park Yong-maan is stepping down from his last remaining post at Doosan Group, bringing official closure to an era for the country’s 15th largest conglomerate.  According to Doosan, the 66-year-old tycoon has recently tendered his resignation as chairman of the group’s think tank, the Doosan Business Research Institute. It was his last remaining link to the conglomerate, which he ran as chief from 2012 until March 2016.  His two sons who are incumbent executives at Doosan

The sense of crisis is deepening in South Korea, as an acute shortage of a chemical called urea threatens to disrupt businesses across a vast spectrum from construction to retail.  Government officials are mobilizing diplomacy to secure urea supplies from overseas, but no immediate solution is in sight.  The Korea Herald looks at what is causing this sudden urea crunch and why this is such a hard problem to solve. 1. What is urea, anyway? Urea is a type of nitrogen made mainly of