South Korean and Spanish business experts discussed potential partnerships, especially in digital and green technologies, at a virtual conference on Tuesday. The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry held the 21st Korea-Spain Economic Cooperation Committee meeting online in collaboration with the Spanish Chamber of Commerce. The meeting comes after a phone conversation between President Moon Jae-in and King Felipe VI of Spain last month. It aims to serve as an opportunity to build momentum

Smartphone usage among South Koreans increased in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, data showed Monday. According to a survey of 1,017 adult men and women nationwide conducted by local civic group Korean Addiction Forum last month, 44.3 percent of the respondents said smartphone usage time has increased -- either slightly or greatly -- since the implementation of social distancing measures. Among the increase of content, social media and messaging accounted for the largest proportion wi

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong stressed the spirit of challenge toward the future at a meeting with employees in the startup program C Lab at the firm’s Suwon office in Gyeonggi Province on Monday. C-Lab is the South Korean tech firm’s in-house incubation program introduced in 2012 aimed at spreading creative organizational culture. Participating executives and employees will be given the opportunity to implement creative ideas they have come up with for one year.

South Korea’s online shopping transactions have surged in the wake of the new coronavirus outbreak. According to data released by Statistics Korea, online shopping transactions totaled 12.72 trillion won ($10.60 billion) in May, up 13.1 percent from a year earlier. The figure is the second-largest after 12.85 trillion won in November last year. Among the online transactions, mobile shopping transactions stood at 8.69 trillion won, up 21 percent year-on-year. Mobile shopping accounted fo

Amid the coronavirus outbreak, concerns are growing that the nation’s food supply chain may become disrupted if the pandemic is prolonged, adding weight to the calls for establishing a national food procurement system. Last month, United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said even in countries with abundant food resources, COVID-19 risks disrupting food supply chains. “Our food systems are failing and the COVID-19 pandemic is making things worse,” he said. In

Major Japanese firms doing business here have seen sales plunge as Japan’s export restrictions on Korea led to a boycott of products, the latest data showed Sunday. Local corporate tracker CEOScore compared the business performance of 31 Japanese consumer goods companies here before and after Japan imposed export curbs on Korea in July last year. The comparison found that average revenue fell 6.9 percent and operating profit plunged 71.3 percent last year compared to a year earlier. Th

Daejanggeum Park in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, is one of the largest open sets in South Korea, where period dramas, movies and commercials are filmed.  It is a semipermanent set that has been modeled after the architectural styles and traditional Korean houses of the Three Kingdoms period, Goryeo kingdom and Joseon era.  Starting with the production of the drama “Shindon” in 2005, numerous dramas and movies, including “Daejanggeum,” “Jumong” and

GS Caltex is expanding an upcycling method that goes further than simply recycling plastic waste and creates new value by mixing materials. The firm said it plans to increase the production of compounded resin made from recycled plastic waste to streamline resources and reduce carbon emissions. Compound resin is a functional plastic widely used as a raw material for automotive and home appliance parts. If plastic waste is recycled to produce compounded resin instead of being incinerated, c

South Korean and European business experts held an online forum Thursday to discuss ways to jointly respond to challenges in the wake of the pandemic and strengthen cooperation in areas such as future mobilities, secondary batteries and bio-health. As a follow-up event to the summit between the two regions, the EU-Korea Virtual Business Conference 2020 was jointly hosted by the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the European Chamber of Commerce in Korea. The conference aimed to discus

Most managers in South Korean companies are of the view that telecommuting has either improved work efficiency and employee satisfaction or remains unchanged, a new survey showed Tuesday. The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry surveyed personnel managers of 300 Korean companies on the status of remote work that is in force due to the new coronavirus outbreak. Around 83.6 percent said work efficiency was similar or has improved while 16.4 percent of the respondents said it has declined.

HMM said Wednesday it held a naming ceremony for the world’s largest container ship HMM Hamburg. It is the fifth of the seven ships that HMM ordered from Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering. The South Korean shipping firm is slated to receive a total of 12 24,000 TEU-class ships -- seven from DSME and five from Samsung Heavy Industries -- by September this year. Among the 12 ships, six vessels have already been deployed on European routes so far, including HMM Algeciras, which

South Korea’s 500 largest companies by assets have expanded their investments in startups with high technologies since 2015, latest data showed Wednesday. Local corporate tracker CEOScore said their investments in startups increased more than 10-fold from 118.2 billion won ($98 million) in 2015 to 1.2 trillion won last year, with the total amount reaching 2.7 trillion won over the past five years. By sector, large investments were made in shared mobility, green cars, artificial intellig

The European Chamber of Commerce in Korea has appointed Dirk Lukat, CEO of Schenker Korea, as the new chairperson, the organization said Tuesday. Lukat is a German citizen and has been the CEO of Schenker Korea in Seoul since January 2015. He will represent the ECCK and oversee its operations and activities, effective July 1, 2020. The new leader started his career at Schenker & Co. in Frankfurt in 1986 and held management positions at DB Schenker in Singapore, Vietnam and India. Befor

Experts said Monday the current trade restrictions imposed by Japan on South Korea should be alleviated as strengthened cooperation in material, parts and equipment will lead to greater economic value. Speaking at a seminar hosted by the Federation of Korean Industries, they noted that closer cooperation between both countries could generate added value worth $123 billion. The seminar aimed to explore the economic impact of Japan’s export regulations on three major high-tech raw materi

LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo marks two years Monday since he took the helm of South Korea’s fourth-largest conglomerate. Under his new and pragmatic leadership, the group has seen quiet but significant changes. Koo became the new leader of LG on June 29, 2018, at the age of 40 after his father, Koo Bon-moo, passed away a month earlier. He inherited the group in the Confucian tradition whereupon the eldest son takes over the family business. The late Koo’s management philosophy

Companies doing business in Korea have shared their best practices and lessons learned amid the pandemic in a seminar hosted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea on Friday. On the day, AmCham hosted the “Doing Business in Korea Seminar 2020,” which was attended by around 100 distinguished guests, including officials from the US and Korean governments and CEOs of foreign companies. In his congratulatory remarks, AmCham Chairman & CEO James Kim highlighted the need fo

South Korean businesspeople have called for easing unfavorable regulations that are not applied in rival countries in order to secure the competitiveness of the nation’s major industries. On Friday, the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry held a second meeting of the regulatory improvement for the major industries with the private and public sectors to listen to the regulatory difficulties of the equipment industry and seek solutions. The meeting was attended by industry associations

South Korea’s antitrust watchdog has approved the merger between French multinational corporation LVMH and American jewelry company Tiffany & Co., saying there is no concern of competition restrictions, officials said Wednesday. On March 13, LVMH filed a business combination report with the nation’s Fair Trade Commission after signing a deal in November last year to acquire all of Tiffany’s shares. The merger has so far been approved by the authorities in the US, Austr

South Korea’s non-regular workers lost jobs more than six times as much as regular workers amid the pandemic, data showed Tuesday. A local civic group Gabjil119 surveyed 1,000 office workers about how COVID-19 has changed work life from June 5-10. According to the survey, 12.9 percent of the respondents said they became unemployed regardless of their will over the past six months. Of the total, 26.3 percent of non-regular workers said they lost jobs, 6.7 times more than 4 percent of

Yakult, a sweet probiotic drink in a tiny pale peach bottle, has been Koreans’ favorite beverage for more than 40 years, even creating its own culture through “Yakult ajumma.” While it sounds similar to yogurt and also contains lots of probiotics -- as much as around 20 billion lactic acid bacteria per bottle -- yogurt and Yakult are different products. Yakult originates from Japan, referring to a drink brand made of skim milk powder that contains probiotic culture with su