The stories of Daewoo Group and its founder Kim Woo-choong have been kept low-key in Korea for more than a decade since the group fell apart in August 1999. The demise of Daewoo Group, the nation’s second-biggest conglomerate in 1998 with 76.7 trillion won ($75.6 billion) in assets, rattled the nation as the biggest failure in the corporate world. Shin Jang-sup, an economics professor at the National University of Singapore, broke the taboo last week, bringing the 78-year-old former business mog

Finance Minister Choi Kyung-hwan urged provincial governments Monday to place their top priority on boosting the economy and supporting people’s livelihoods.In his meeting with Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon, Choi also said that Seoul City should lead other municipalities in economic stimulus efforts. This marked the first meeting between a finance minister and a mayor of Seoul since 2006. Seoul is the country’s largest city, where more than 10 million people live out of the total population of aroun

False insurance claims increased 11.2 percent in terms of payments in the first six months of the year to nearly 300 billion won ($295.77 million), including cases of drunk driving and exaggerated injury, the financial watchdog said Monday.According to the Financial Supervisory Service, insurance fraud scammers took 286.9 billion won through wrongful filings during the January-June period, up from 257.9 billion won a year earlier.The watchdog detected 40,714 suspects over the six-month period, s

Negotiators from South Korea, China and Japan met in Beijing on Monday for a fifth round of talks on a trilateral free-trade agreement, a Seoul delegate said, setting aside diplomatic tensions between Japan and the two Asian neighbors over their shared history. South Korea’s chief negotiator, Assistant Commerce Minister Woo Tae-hee, kicked off the talks at a hotel in Beijing by shaking hands and exchanging greetings with China’s assistant commerce minister, Wang Shouwen, and Japanese Deputy Fore

South Korea’s trade surplus shrank from a year earlier last month as its exports dropped while imports grew at a steady pace, the government said Monday. Outbound shipments came to $46.28 billion in August, down 0.1 percent from the same month last year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Imports gained 3.1 percent on-year to $42.87 billion.The country’s trade surplus came to $3.41 billion, compared with $4.72 billion in August 2013. “Overall exports decreased slightly from

Hyundai Motor, South Korea’s top automaker, said Monday its August sales fell 5.9 percent from a year earlier, mainly due to choppy labor-management relations.Company data showed 357,698 cars were sold overall last month, with domestic sales edging up 1 percent to 48,143. Overseas numbers dropped 6.9 percent to 309,555 cars.In regards to domestic sales, the company said the transition to a two-shift system at its Jeonju plant and steady demand for the brand new Sonata, the 2015 Genesis premium s

The financial watchdog is expected to set tech loan quotas for local banks so that they will mandatorily lend to small and mid-sized companies that have high-end technologies but are short of capital to fund their business, financial sources said Monday.The Financial Services Commission last week announced it will push banks and other financial institutions to increase loans to start-up ventures to help boost the nation’s economy. It said technology credit bureaus will be established to assess e

Belgium’s Ghent University opened its local branch in South Korea’s Incheon free economic zone Monday, becoming the first European school to open a campus here.A ceremony that also marked the opening of a branch of the University of Utah from the United States was held in the free economic zone in Songdo, also a home to the United Nations Green Climate Fund, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.Ghent University, one of the top-rated schools in the world for bioscience, is expe

The government and the ruling party are considering a hike in the nation’s budget next year by about 5 percent, a move apparently aimed at boosting the economy, while keeping the country’s fiscal status sound. The expansion is lower than the 6 percent increase requested by government ministries and agencies. It is also much lower than the about 10 percent increase in spending that experts have expected since the government unveiled its economy stimulus measures in July.“We were briefed on the go

The future of Wolseong nuclear power plant unit 1, which has been preparing for a 10-year license renewal for the past few years, is unclear as civic groups and some politicians are speaking out against extending the operations of the country’s aging nuclear power plants. The 700-megawatt Wolseong unit 1 in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, started commercial operations in 1983 as the nation’s first pressurized heavy-water reactor. Its 30-year-long initial design lifespan ended on Dec. 20, 20

South Korean stocks may gain with a steady flow of foreign funds, but advances are not likely to be large due to lingering geopolitical concerns this week, analysts said.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index ended at 2,068.54 last Friday, up 4.6 percent from the previous week’s closing. In the beginning of last week, Korean shares picked up as foreigners loaded up on blue-chip stocks on hints of quantitative easing in the eurozone and the continuation of a low-rate policy by the U.S.Fe

South Korea ranked eighth in terms of global trade volume in the first half of 2014, one notch higher than the previous year, a report showed Sunday.According to the report by the Institute for International Trade, a research agency, South Korea’s trade volume came to $546.4 billion during the January-June period. The amount is the eighth largest among the 71 major countries surveyed by the agency. South Korea’s exports grew 2.5 percent on-year to $283.3 billion during the first half, the sevent

South Korea’s antitrust watchdog said on Sunday it plans to launch an investigation into consumers’ complaints about the overpriced auto parts used in imported foreign vehicles.“As consumers’ complaints are growing over excessive repair costs of imported vehicles, we are going to look into auto part prices of imported cars in September and October,” Noh Dae-lae, head of the Fair Trade Commission, told reporters during a meeting Thursday. His remarks were embargoed until Sunday. He said that the

Samsung SDS, which filed for preliminary examination last week for an initial public offering, was highlighted in the new over-the-counter market. According to the Korea Financial Investment Association, trading volume of the nation’s newly revamped OTC market leaped some tenfold, with shares of Samsung SDS, an IT unit of Samsung Group, making marked gains ahead of its scheduled listing within the year. KOFIA recently eased entry rules and disclosure requirements to widen access to the unlisted

Workers of Renault Samsung Motor voted down a tentative wage deal their union had reached with management earlier this year, contending that it falls short of their expectations, the company confirmed on Sunday. The agreement was rejected on Friday, with 62.9 percent of the 2,448 union members voting against it. The union of the carmaker said it plans to hold a general meeting of workers next week to discuss the future course of action.The latest development may lead to partial walkouts similar

GS Engineering and Construction confirmed Thursday that it was considering selling GS Inima, its Spain-based affiliate, to improve its financial health. The builder took over a 79.6 percent stake in Inima, a Spanish builder that specializes in water desalination and treatment, in 2011 for $312.4 million.“We hired HSBC Securities as a lead manager for the deal, but nothing has been decided yet about whether to auction off Inima,’’ the company said in a statement.Industry watchers forecast that if

More than a decade after the collapse of Daewoo Group in 1999, the group founder and former chairman Kim Woo-choong has stepped out of the shadows to promote a book telling the “real story” about what caused the group to fall. The author is Shin Jang-sup, a professor at the National University of Singapore, who wrote the book as Kim told it. The demise of Daewoo is recorded as the largest bankruptcy ever in Korea. As of the late 1990s, the group was the nation’s second-largest industrial conglom

Cuckoo Electronics CEO Koo Bon-hak. (Yonhap)Koo Bon-hak, chief executive of Cuckoo Electronics, the nation’s largest electric rice cooker maker, has become a rising star in the corporate world after his wealth jumped on a recent stock listing.On Aug. 6, Cuckoo Electronics listed 9.8 million shares on the nation’s main stock bourse. During the ensuing 20 days, share prices skyrocketed 60 percent from the initially offered price of 104,000 won. On Friday, it closed at 186,000 won ($182). On that d

South Korean stocks closed 0.61 percent higher Friday as investor sentiment was lifted by upbeat U.S. data ahead of a key U.S. Federal Reserve event, analysts said.The local currency gained ground against the U.S. greenback. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index rose 12.49 points to close at 2,056.70, a rebound from a 1.19 percent fall Thursday sparked by hints of an early rate hike in the United States. Trading volume was slim at 273 million shares worth 3.45 trillion won ($3.37 billi

KT Corp., the nation’s second-largest mobile carrier, was ordered by a local district court Friday to pay 100,000 won ($97) in compensation to each customer who had personal data leaked in 2012. The Seoul Central District Court’s ruling came after some 28,000 KT users filed a lawsuit against the mobile carrier for the leak of sensitive personal information, demanding compensation of 500,000 won per person.Police earlier discovered that the personal information of 8.7 million users, including soc