The government plans to invest 1.36 trillion won ($1.22 billion) in energy-related research and development this year, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Sunday. Targeted R&D projects for investments will include technology development, improving human resources, international cooperation, and standardization in the energy sector. Most of all, the ministry will allocate 700 billion won to technology R&D, while human resources and international cooperation projects will attract 40.3 billion w

In April last year, Doosan Corp. chairman Park Yong-maan was invited to the 21st Asia Business Conference hosted by the prestigious Harvard Business School in Boston, U.S. The conference gave Park a chance to present the story of the group’s dramatic transformation from a domestic consumer goods and liquor producer into a global infrastructure builder in 20 years. Behind the drastic change of Doosan in a short time were, above all, successful merger and acquisition deals at home and abroad.Durin

The state-run rail corporation has developed a contingency plan in preparation for the possible bankruptcy of the 31 trillion won ($29 billion) Yongsan development project in which the company holds a 25 percent stake, a company official said on Wednesday. “If the troubled development project goes bankrupt, KORAIL will face full-scale capital erosion as money attained in return for the land offer will disappear in the accounting book,” the official said. The Yongsan project is the nation’s large

Kim Keun-ho, the CEO of the state-run Korea Water Resources Corp., or K-water, and four employees received the Royal Order of Sahametrei, a knight-rank medal, by the Cambodian government for their dedication to the water resource management project in Cambodia, the company said on Wednesday. The order is a medal of honor conferred primarily on foreigners who have rendered distinguished services to the King of Cambodia and to the nation. K-water has completed eight water resource management-relat

For Korean trade union members, spring is a tough season as they traditionally undergo collective bargaining with company management over annual wages and other working conditions. The collective bargaining period often turned sour and violent in the past decades. Winds of change arrived in the nation’s industrial relations in the early 2000s when labor relations evolved into cooperative or value-creating ones, following the confrontational period in the 1980s and 1990s. “LG Electronics started

Following is the fourth in a series of stories featuring economic issues facing the Park Geun-hye government that was inaugurated on Feb. 25. ― Ed.Two days after the launch of the Park Geun-hye administration on Feb. 25, the National Tax Service began an investigation into 66 fake oil manufacturers and distributors charged with tax evasion, as part of efforts to implement one of the new government’s top agenda items ― bringing the shadow economy to light. Tax evasion in the fake oil market, in w

The controversial Yongsan development project, which had been on the verge of bankruptcy, found a breakthrough on Thursday as two major shareholders reached an agreement ending confrontation on the project normalization plan. On Thursday, Lotte Tour Development, the second-largest shareholder of Dream Hub, announced that it accepted the normalization plan, offered by the state-run KORAIL, the largest shareholder in the project, in the hope of saving the nation’s largest property development proj

Hotel Lotte Co., the holding company of retail giant Lotte Group, is undergoing a tax investigation, industry sources said Wednesday. Company officials confirmed that inspectors from the National Tax Service are proceeding to examine the company’s financial documents at the hotel in downtown Seoul. They claimed the probe is part of a regular audit by the NTS. Industry sources, however, said the tax inspection of the affiliate of a chaebol, or family-controlled Korean conglomerates, could be link

The state-run Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, known as K-sure, said Wednesday it would join the Yamal liquefied natural gas project in Russia as a financial investor. The decision was made after Russia’s second-largest gas producer Novatek, which owns an 80 percent stake in the $25 billion project, visited the export credit agency to ask for financing for the project. K-sure said the amount of financing would be decided later after the project operator announced global engineering, production

Korea Midland Power, or KOMIPO, said it signed a civil work contact for its underground power plant project in Seoul with a local construction consortium. With the contact worth 226 billion won ($208 million), the state-run power generation company will be able to push for the world’s first underground power plant project, to be completed in September 2016. The project will build two units for the 400-megawatt, LNG-fueled power plant and the two units will be responsible of the stable electricit

This is the third in a series of case studies on the nation’s leading state-run companies which have made success stories overseas. ― Ed.The state-run Korea National Oil Corp., or KNOC, is expected to shift its gears to quality-driven growth this year from external expansion through M&A deals to become a globally competitive energy giant, KNOC officials said. Under the initiative of the previous government to cultivate state-run energy development companies as global players, which was set in Ju

The coming Park Geun-hye government is expected to take a two-track policy of promoting exports of nuclear power plants while curbing expansion of the industry at home. The outline of 140 major projects that the presidential transition committee unveiled on Thursday said the new government will support exports of nuclear plants in an attempt to boost the economy. But it didn’t present a clear direction on the increase of nuclear reactors at home. The president-elect has continued to stress the s

More than 5,000 energy-related ministers, CEOs and experts from about 100 countries are expected to attend the 22nd World Energy Congress slated for October in Daegu, organizers in Seoul said on Thursday.The organizing committee also unveiled the first speaker lineup, including names and titles of 100 speakers, in a bid to attract more global attention to the event. “South Africa’s Energy Minister Dipuo Peters has recently confirmed his participation in the event as the 100th speaker,” the commi

The inauguration of Korea’s new government may rev up cooperation between Korea and Russia, particularly in the energy field. President-elect Park Geun-hye, who is to take office on Monday, earlier pledged to stabilize domestic energy supplies and to achieve a logistics network covering Eurasia.Eying such potential, En+ Group, a Russia-based diversified mining, metals and energy group, is poised to seek more energy-related cooperation with Korea, including a cross-border electricity supply proje

The nation’s clean energy businesses are going downhill, squeezed by a slump in domestic demand and exports, according to a report.The report released by the Renewable Energy Center under Korea Export-Import Bank forecast that sales of the local renewable energy industry were expected to post minus growth this year over 2012, mainly due to slow local demand. Sales in the clean energy industry have shown a downward trend for two consecutive years in 2011 and 2012, after peaking in 2010 at 8.1 tri

A crucial decision on the future of the faltering Yongsan project, the nation’s biggest property development worth about 31 trillion won ($30 billion), is expected to come this week as the developer and major shareholders are set to hold a separate meeting.The state-run KORAIL, the largest shareholder in the project, will hold a board meeting Thursday to decide whether to back the issuance of asset-backed commercial paper worth 300 billion won ($278 million), one of last resorts to finance the p

A trade deal between the European Union and the U.S would have little impact on the Korean economy, which has its own free trade agreements with the two major export destinations, experts in Seoul said on Thursday. “It is too early to talk about the detailed fallout of the EU and U.S. trade pact, but Korean exporters could be shielded by the two effective trade pacts with the U.S. and EU,” an official from the Korea International Trade Association said. Concerns have been raised over the afterma

State-run energy companies have launched a project to support faltering local shipping and shipbuilding companies by placing orders for coal import deliveries and shipbuilding. On Thursday, five power generation subsidiaries of the Korea Electric Power Corp., including Korea Midland Power and Korean Southern Power, signed an 18-year contact with four local shipping companies for the delivery of their coal imports, the energy source to fuel thermal power plants nationwide.The shipping companies a

Chung Kwang-mo, chairwoman of the Consumers Union of Korea, died in Seoul on Wednesday after a life devoted to improving consumer rights. She was 84.Chung, born in 1929 in Seoul, started her career at the Pyeonghwa Daily as a journalist in 1951 after graduating from Ewha Womans University and later worked at the Seoul Daily and Hankook Ilbo. She then shifted her career to consumer rights activism, creating the Consumers Union of Korea, the nation’s first private organization for consumer rights

Government ministries and agencies will cut 10 percent of their basic operating expenses in their 2013 budget in an attempt to tighten their belts amid the protracted economic downtown, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance said Tuesday. “It is true the government asked for ministries to submit a plan to cut their basic operation costs by 10 percent,” a ministry official said. The cut will be made by reducing spending on administrative activities, information technology system operations and publ