The Korea Herald is publishing a series of articles on infrastructure as part of its second installment of Power Korea. Korea’s success story is a 60-year-old tale written by not one, but many who worked to build one of the world’s most powerful nations from the ashes of war. This series features the development and global competitiveness of Korea’s infrastructure. The special articles were made in cooperation with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. This is the 5th part of the i

The nation’s top business groups, including Samsung, Hyundai Motor, SK and LG, are expected to unveil a new investment plan during the state visit of President Park Geun-hye to China in a bid to woo the world’s largest market and for business expansion, industry sources said. On Friday, SK Group, the nation’s third-largest conglomerate, announced a joint-venture between its chemical subsidiary SK Global Chemical and China Petrochemical Corp., or Sinopec, China’s state-run and largest oil company

Daewoo Engineering & Construction, the nation’s third-largest builder, is stepping up its efforts to win engineering, procurement and construction contracts overseas in the nuclear power plant sector, the company said in a press release. Daewoo E&C is a latecomer to nuclear power plant construction compared with other builders such as Hyundai E&C, but it quickly caught up to become the first builder to have capabilities from plant design to construction by winning a nuclear plant design deal fro

The Incheon Free Economic Zone has invested in attracting global educational institutes, in the belief that it is important to attract global talent to build the reputation of Songdo as an international city. It has made efforts to provide the facilities and resources to educate high-caliber talented people. At the center of these efforts is Songdo Global University Campus, which just completed its first stage of development. Located on a 295,000-square-meter site in the seventh zone of Songdo I

The Incheon Free Economic Zone has emerged as one of the most popular investment destinations over the last decade, and is still seeing continued development. The IFEZ, covering 209 square kilometers, is located within Incheon Metropolitan City and consists of the three regions of Songdo, Cheongna and Yeongjong Island where Incheon International Airport is located. It is the nation’s first FEZ, designated in 2003. There are currently eight FEZs nationwide.In 2003, with the vision of transforming

G-Tower in Songdo is expected to become a hub for U.N. offices in Korea. This year, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and North-East Asia Office moved to G-Tower in the Incheon Free Economic Zone. Three more U.N. offices, including the Global Climate Fund, also plan to move to the same building. UNESCAP-ENEA occupies the sixth and seventh floors of the building, and there is a library that exclusively houses U.N. materials as well as state-of-the-art conf

ULSAN ― The offshore yard in Ulsan run by Hyundai Heavy Industries, the nation’s top shipbuilder, is a surprisingly interesting place to explore. The focus on offshore plants makes for a much more diverse range of construction than at conventional shipyards, and increased orders in recent years have the place buzzing.According to HHI, as of June, seven different offshore plants are being built in the world’s largest offshore yard, which covers 215 acres. Those include modules for the Barrow Isla

Korea completed the construction of the nation’s largest oil tank terminal in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, on Monday, as part of its goal to become a Northeast Asian oil hub.As part of the goal, the state-run Korea National Oil Corp. has led oil tank terminal construction projects in Yeosu and Ulsan since 2008, both of which have leading petrochemical industrial complexes near the tank terminal sites. “The Yeosu tank terminal completed the construction in March this year of 36 tanks whose crude

Korea will launch a drive to export its nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia by hosting minister-level talks between the two countries in Seoul on Monday for cooperation in the nuclear energy sector.The repeated scandals revolving around the use of substandard parts supplied with forged quality certificates in several domestic nuclear reactors, however, may put a dent in the government’s nuclear plant export initiative ― one of the administration’s key economic policy agendas. The number of loca

Korea Water Resources Corp., or K-water, has completed price negotiations with the Thai government over a Thai water management and flood prevention scheme, raising hopes that the preferred bidder will win the massive project.“Both sides agreed to set the cost at 6.1 trillion won ($5.3 billion) to proceed modules A5 and A3 out of nine modules, which the Korean company won,’’ the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in its statement on Wednesday. The A-5 project to build floodways

Korea has agreed with the Netherlands to cooperate in agriculture, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said Thursday. Agriculture Minister Lee Dong-phil signed a memorandum of understanding with his Dutch counterpart Sharon Dijksma to enhance exchanges and cooperation in agricultural policies, the ministry said. When it comes to agriculture policy, the Netherlands, the second largest exporter of agricultural and food products in the world after the U.S., has been a benchmark nati

 

The debate on whether or not to cultivate corporate farms has heated up in Korea since a Dongbu Group subsidiary decided to pull out of its tomato production business in March, under pressure from farmers’ interest groups. Dongbu Farm Hannong, a leading crop producer in Korea, invested about 40 billion won ($36 million) to build and operate a 150,000-square-meter greenhouse farm for tomato production in Hwaong, an area of reclaimed land in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province. The government removed barr

Foreign food makers and local importers are expected to face tougher safety rules from 2015 as the government and some lawmakers are pushing for legislation to enhance the safety of imported food.A group of 12 lawmakers said on Monday that they would seek to mandate foreign food makers and local importers to register information of their food imports with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, Korea’s food watchdog.“We expect a special bill on safety management of imported food, which is pending

The Korea Petroleum Association, one of the most influential lobby groups in the oil industry, has appointed Chun Young-won, 69, a former lawmaker from the ruling Saenuri Party, as its new chairman, the organization said in a press release. CEOs of four regular member firms ― SK Energy, GS Caltex, S-Oil and Hyundai Oilbank ― all agreed to his appointment in a recent general meeting, it added. The association, which was established in 1980 to tide over the second oil crisis, has preferred a chair

Hanwha Group, the nation’s 10th-largest conglomerate by assets, is to step up its penetration into the growing Japanese solar power market by establishing its second sales office in Osaka within the month, the company said on Thursday. The group’s first Japanese sales office opened in Fukuoka in 2012.In August last year, Hanwha Group signed a deal with Japanese trading firm Marubeni to supply solar modules by 2016 that generate about 500 megawatts.“The group will also set up the first after-sale

GS Engineering & Construction, the nation’s fourth-largest builder in terms of capacity, named chief financial official Lim Byung-yong as its new CEO, replacing current CEO Huh Myung-soo, as part of efforts to bring change and innovation to the organization, the company said in a press release. “The decision was made at the latest board meeting on June 12 and three business divisions, led by each division head, will be merged and put under the direct control of chairman Huh Chang-soo,” the compa

Bae Jong-ha, former president of the Korea National College of Agriculture and Fisheries, was named as representative of the Vietnam office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs. “Bae will be responsible for coordinating the FAO’s support programs to develop the agricultural sector in Vietnam,” a ministry official said. Bae, 56, had served the Agriculture Ministry between 1979 and 2009 before he moved to t

Human error is one of the main causes of malfunctions at nuclear power plants in Korea, a survey showed on Tuesday. According to the state-run Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, 672 breakdowns or accidents at nuclear plants were reported over the past 36 years between 1978 and April 2013, and 18.3 percent of them were caused by human error. The latest breakdowns of two nuclear reactors, caused by the use of substandard parts, were not reflected in the data.“Twenty percent of breakdowns occurred

Hyundai Engineering & Construction, the nation’s top builder, has set the goal of winning overseas order contracts worth more than $11 billion in 2013, the company said in a press release. If the goal is achieved as planned, the proportion of the builder’s total sales made overseas will rise to 75 percent from 65 percent last year. In 2012, the company’s overseas orders reached a record high of $10.5 billion. The continued growth in the overseas construction market resulted from the company’s co