A global healthcare exhibition kicked off in Busan on Thursday to test the southeastern port city’s potential of becoming a healthcare hub in Northeast Asia, organizers said. The three-day 2022 Global Healthcare Week, which is taking place at BEXCO, brings experts, companies and hospitals specializing in senior care, beauty, bio, food and fitness together to provide the latest information, products and services on how to live well and happy, they said. A total of 145 organizations are par

A bank employee in Namwon, North Jeolla Province, was forced to cook, wash dishes and clean clothes at her workplace over the last two years, a civic group said while filing the case to anti-corruption and labor dispute agencies. According to Gapjil 119, a civic group that campaigns against workplace abuses, one of the female employees working at MG Community Credit Cooperatives said she had to cook rice at 11 a.m. and report to her branch manager how well the rice was done. She also claims sh

Kyobo Life Insurance Co., a South Korean life insurer, said on Thursday it has established the Cia-Cia Hangeul School on Buton Island, Indonesia, in partnership with the Korea Cia-Cia Cultural Exchange Association. The Cia-Cia are one of Indonesia’s 350 minorities who in 2009 officially chose to use the Korean alphabet, Hangeul, to preserve its fading language. The Cia-Cia local language, also known as Butonese, does not have its own writing system. They use Hangeul to mimic the pronuncia

South Korea’s largest beer maker Oriental Brewery introduced its climate change-tackling technology at the Conference of Global Climate Action Fund, according to the company on Wednesday. The conference, initiated for the first time and scheduled to be held from Monday to Friday, was co-hosted by the W Foundation and United Nations Climate Change Convention. It was designed to support private sector efforts to achieve carbon neutrality. At the conference, Nataly Borges, vice president o

Hyundai Motor Group said on Tuesday it has decided to invest in Bos Semiconductors, an automotive semiconductor startup. Bos Semiconductor is a fabless startup which specializes in manufacturing system semiconductors used in automotive software. The startup aims to design high-performance semiconductors that consume low amounts of power. It also aims to manufacture central processing units and high-speed interfaces that are essential for automotive semiconductors. Hyundai Motor’s inv

LS Cable & System will commercialize a remote-control cable management system that detects operational abnormalities, prevents power outages and sends online alerts, said the company on Tuesday. The new system called i-check allows IoT sensors attached to cables to detect malfunctions such as electricity leakages and overheating, to prevent power outages and fires. Users will be able to check the status of the cable in real time on the web and mobile devices, and receive push notificatio

Pulmuone’s wholly owned US subsidiary Pulmuone Foods USA said on Monday that sales of its tofu have increased 11 percent this year from last year. The South Korean food giant attributed its sales performance to the construction of its tofu production line at Pulmuone Fullerton plant. The production facility established in November in California contributed to increasing the total production of tofu in the US by 38 percent, according to the company. Pulmuone Foods USA is currently ope

Lotte Chemical has reportedly submitted a tender to acquire a controlling stake in South Korean copper foil manufacturer Iljin Materials on Friday. The Seoul-based petrochemical firm is considered one of the proposed buyers of the 53.3 percent stake in Iljin Materials from President and Chief Executive Officer Huh Jae-myung, which will cost around 3 trillion won ($2.24 billion). Citigroup Global Markets Korea Securities is the deal manager. Copper foil is one of the key components of seconda

Hyundai Steel, the nation’s No. 2 steel maker, said Sunday it is betting big on waste recycling in its renewed push for carbon neutrality. The company has recycled used coffee grounds as part of its social contribution activities. More recently, it signed a memorandum of understanding with the Incheon Yeonsu Rehabilitation Center to accelerate related research. The North Gyeongsang Province Government Public Institute of Health and Environment, the key beneficiary, will carry out a stu

Posco International, the trading arm of the Posco Group, said Friday that its board has approved a bill to absorb Posco Energy. The merger will be put to the vote at the general shareholders‘ meeting on Nov. 4 and finalized on Jan. 1, the company said in a statement. 100 shares of Posco International will be worth 116 shares of Posco Energy. Posco International will issue new shares according to the merger ratio and transfer approximately 46 million shares to Posco Holdings, the shareho

Samsung Biologics has tentatively signed a deal worth 457 billion won ($350 million) with AstraZeneca on contract manufacturing, the company said in a regulatory filing Friday. The two sides reached the agreement in May last year, but was unveiling it this time as they were renewing the contract to include “increases in demand” from AstraZeneca. The renewed deal accounts for 29 percent of Samsung Biologics’ total sales in 2021, which was approximately 1.5 trillion won. The

The electronic parts supplier LG Innotek was awarded with the Jaguar Land Rover Quality Certificate for two consecutive years, the company said Thursday. The certificate, awarded by UK car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover, evaluates partner companies for their quality of components and compliance with delivery dates. LG Innotek has supplied DC-DC converters, components that convert high-voltage direct currents from the battery into low-voltage direct currents, to Jaguar Land Rover since 2017.

SK Innovation Vice Chairman and CEO Kim Jun visited Poland to ask the Polish government for its support of South Korea’s bid to host the 2030 World Expo in Busan, the company said Thursday. Kim met with Waldemar Buda, the Polish minister of economic development and technology in Warsaw on Tuesday. 　 SK IE Technology’s President Rho Jae-sok and Polish government officials were also present at the meeting. “The Busan Expo will be a platform upon which we can solve various ch

Researchers at the Korea Institute of Production Technology said Wednesday that they have succeeded in developing a fluorine-based polyimide film, opening a leeway to produce the material without having to rely on imports from Japan. The film is a crucial part of foldable displays, as it gets rid of wrinkles when folded. It has been under the Japanese government’s export control since 2019, which had Korean manufacturers in a panic due to their heavy dependence on items produced in the nei

Industry behemoths are utilizing non-fungible tokens not only as a marketing tool but also to provide more diverse services to their customers, according to industry insiders on Monday. Samsung Electronics has signed a memorandum of understanding with Samsung Digital Plaza, Shilla Duty Free Shop, Show Golf and E Cruise at E Cruise headquarters on Monday, to promote customers’ usage of New Galaxy NFT. In the MOU, blockchain company Theta Labs participated as an NFT issuing partner, and

In light of uncertainties involving global competition for hegemony, pandemic and digitization, South Korea’s intellectual property agency chief has emphasized that upgrading the evaluation system for IP assets is essential for local companies to innovate themselves. “The amount of South Korea’s IP assets has grown drastically over the past decades, and the country is considered one of the global IP powerhouses. Now is the time to focus on improving the quality of the IP eval

Non-fungible token solution company KOREAN NFT will hold a networking event titled ‘HY NET SEOUL’ on Saturday, the company said on Thursday. The event will bring blockchain leaders, influencers, artists, collectors, and community members in Seoul together, it added. “We are going to create an NFT market ecosystem by supporting the domestic and foreign projects of Korean artists, planning new businesses and developing talent,“ said KOREAN NFT’s CEO Donglee Han.

South Korean mobile carriers are set to launch a joint venture for the first time to join forces in enhancing financial accessibility and realizing ESG management values. The joint venture will be using non-financial credit evaluation services based on the three telecom carriers’ collected data, to mainly help the financially disadvantaged. Non-financial credit evaluation services will evaluate a person‘s credits by analyzing the customer‘s check card usage, shopping histor

Six Korean energy companies will join hands with Malaysia’s state-run energy company, Petroliam Nasional Berhad, to launch a cross-border project that transports carbon captured in South Korea to Malaysia for storage, the firms said Wednesday. For the project named Shepherd CCS, the six companies, SK Energy, SK Earthon, Samsung Engineering, Samsung Heavy Industries, Lotte Chemical and GS Energy, signed a memorandum of understanding with Petroliam Nasional Berhad, commonly known as Petron

Contract manufacturing giant Samsung Biologics said Tuesday it has successfully completed the first commercial-scale engineering run of the drug substance for COVID-19 messenger RNA vaccines. With the latest completion, the company added that now it is equipped to provide end-to-end mRNA production for clients. In November last year, the company signed a contract manufacturing organization partnership deal with US biotech firm GreenLights Biosciences. After months of technology transfer, the