South Korea’s Ministry of Strategy and Finance said Monday it would readjust and revise some of the country’s income tax codes after closely evaluating the changes in the patterns of tax payments and individuals’ tax burdens stemming from settling the previous year’s taxes.This comes amid growing public criticism that many income earners will have to pay more taxes than receive tax refunds next month as they file their year-end taxes with the National Tax Service this month.The Finance Ministry

The Bank of Korea on Thursday revised down its growth forecast to 3.4 percent from 3.9 percent for this year amid weakening consumption and private investment.The central bank also cut its inflation forecast to 1.9 percent from 2.4 percent, and kept its key base rate at 2 percent for the third consecutive month due to the continued global economic slowdown.The U.S. seemed to be the only major economy showing signs of a moderate recovery this year, the BOK noted. The BOK cut its growth forecast t

President Park Geun-hye downplayed concerns Monday that the South Korean economy was following the path of Japan’s deflation and low growth, stressing that the country would not waste time to spur the economy despite negative macroeconomic conditions.In her New Year press conference, Park said the country would pursue its economic structural reforms as a means to prevent Asia’s fourth-largest economy from falling further into low growth.“Although our country’s inflation rate is currently low, ma

KT Corp. CEO Hwang Chang-gyu (center) and union officials pledge to promote peaceful labor-management relations this year on Friday. (KT Corp.)KT Corp. CEO Hwang Chang-gyu urged his employees to work effortlessly to gain the trust of consumers and lead the market.In his New Year speech at the company on Friday, Hwang said KT had faced a series of problems last year, and that the group and its units should work together to overcome the economic uncertainties ahead. The company faced further unpre

Samsung Electronics said Thursday that it would unveil a lineup of smart televisions running on the Tizen operating system at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.The company said Tizen would offer a simple user-friendly interface, allowing consumers to rapidly find popular content via Samsung’s Smart Hub function, which will also recommend shows to viewers based on their viewing histories.South Korea’s biggest household appliance-maker has partnered with game devel

Take a moment and imagine a world where every information and object is customized to your needs through the power of big data solutions, sensor and cloud computing technology.Even before you step out of the office and head home on a cold winter night, your automobile will not only know your final destination, but it will warm up your seat in advance, your thermostat will raise the temperature to heat up your house and your refrigerator will recommend what food to eat for dinner.Although this ma

South Korean tech giants Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics are gearing up to display their prowess at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada, in the U.S. on Jan. 6-9.Samsung Electronics, Korea’s biggest electronics appliance maker, said Monday that it would showcase new concepts and innovative products targeting the North American market at the global exhibition.Its CES product lineup includes the ACTIVWash washing machine with space above the drum, enabling consum

SK Telecom said Sunday that it had commercialized a tri-band Long Term Evolution-Advanced service for the first time ever, as part of efforts to develop fifth-generation telecommunications networks.The tri-band LTE-A service will enable users to download a 1-gigabyte movie in 28 seconds at a speed of 300 megabits per second, which is four times faster than existing fourth-generation LTE, and 21 times faster than the third-generation service, South Korea’s largest mobile carrier noted.This follow

LG Electronics said Thursday that it would partner with Mercedes-Benz to develop a key auto component for the global premium automaker’s next-generation autonomous cars.South Korea’s second-largest consumer electronics company will partner with Mercedes-Benz to develop a stereo camera system, which works like a “human eye” with the capability to detect objects on the road ahead, LG noted. The system will use computational stereoscopic vision and sensors to enable driverless cars to gather traffi

K Venture CEO John Park. (Daum Kakao)Daum Kakao said Tuesday that it would invest 100 billion won ($90 million) to set up an investment company, tentatively called K Venture Group, next month.The operator of the widely used mobile messenger KakaoTalk will aim to create sustainable venture ecosystems like those in the U.S. tech hub of Silicon Valley by actively investing in and acquiring promising start-ups with innovative technology and ideas.“K Venture seeks to discover new growth for Daum Kaka

South Korea’s state-run Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute said Monday that it would expand its operating system for drones and helicopters to be used for the operation of trains and nuclear power plants.The ETRI’s indigenous embedded OS software, called the Qplus Air, will be further developed with its partners to focus on monitoring and running the safety systems of railroads and nuclear power plants.It has partnered with KEPCO Engineering & Construction, the nuclear power p

South Korea’s Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning said Friday that it would support start-ups that create services and products based on technologies developed by state-run universities and research institutes to enter the Chinese market.In a tech event hosted by Tsinghua University in Beijing, ICT Minister Choi Yang-hee said the two countries should collaborate in commercializing technologies created during the research and development stages and spur the start-up industry.As a start,

SK C&C, South Korea’s third-largest IT systems developer, said Thursday that it would officially launch a division providing big data analytic and solution services to clients next year.It set up a task force of some 60 experts early this year to look into the feasibility of big data technology and to develop business models that would best service its customers.It boosted the number of experts on the team to 100, which include data scientists, statisticians, IT systems developers and IT archite

The advent of digital technology had spelled trouble for professional and emerging comic book artists as the technology made paper books less appealing to readers.With consumers shifting to digital content and services in droves, both newly created and long-standing comic books and characters faced their demise.But in 2003, the convergence of information technology and offline cultural content, which led to the creation of a digital platform called Webtoon by Daum Communications, instantly chang

 It was never easy for Lee Jun to become a professional comic artist.Without proper training or money to hire assistants, he had to master the skills of drawing and storytelling on his own.Lee dropped out of college, but kept his job as an office worker not only to make ends meet but also to realize his lifelong dream.“It was never easy to create webtoons,” Lee said in an interview with The Korea Herald.A self portrait by Lee Jun“I only rested for half a day during the week and spent all my time

LG Electronics said Tuesday that the company would unveil new LCD televisions that use quantum dot technology at the International Consumers Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.South Korea’s second largest consumer electronics company will showcase two sets of 55 and 65-inch quantum dot-based ultrahigh-definition LCD TVs featuring higher color reproduction capacity.The TVs are embedded with films of quantum dot nanocrystals, which are placed in front of LCD backlights, to boost the color ga

The National Pension Service, South Korea’s pension manager, said Sunday that it sold the HSBC headquarters building in Canary Wharf, London, U.K. to Qatar Investment Authority, Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund last week.The NPS, which acquired the real estate asset in 2009, gained 960 billion won ($900 million), including dividends of 419 billion won, from the sale.The Korean pension operator was able to reap 1.65 times the investment it made in the building five years ago with the net internal ra

The number of cross-shareholding investments among affiliates of Samsung Group has decreased thanks to a recent series of shifts in its governance including the listings of key affiliates such as Cheil Industries Co. on the Seoul bourse, a market researcher said Sunday. According to a report from Chaebol.com, Samsung’s cross shareholding investment rings that connect its affiliates fell to 10 this year from 30 a year ago. Cross shareholding is a type of investment structure among affiliates of a

Samsung Electronics on Wednesday announced a business restructuring that added more sectors to its mobile division, apparently in a move to bolster its mainstay business amid disappointing handset sales.The announced plan includes transferring the marketing sector of the Global Business-to-business Center and mobile-related duties of the Mobile Solution Center to the IT and Mobile Division “to better cope with market changes and strengthen speedy decision-making.”The MSC is in charge of developi