S-Oil on Thursday opened a three-day vacation camp for 70 fire service personnel and their spouses on Jejudo Island as part of its campaign to support the emergency services. The company has been operating the campaign in collaboration with the Korea National Council on Social Welfare.  A fire service worker and his wife pose during a three-day vacation camp for 70 fire service personnel and their spouses on Jejudo Island held Thursday to support the emergency services. (S-Oil)The campaign award

Time for companies to show their true colors on climate changeBy Georg Kell The Paris summit on climate change coming up in December will be a test of the ability of world leaders to read science accurately, and to act in the long-term interests of their countries and their planet.But the spotlight is also on business.Traditionally understood to be a major source of the problem, the private sector is now becoming a necessary part of the solution.The first cracks in the ice of corporate inactivit

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday called for South Korean firms to step up efforts to achieve sustainable development. “The Korean industry is dynamic. Everybody agrees, and it is growing. I am here to call on you to be even more creative in your contributions to global progress,” Ban said during the U.N. Global Compact Korea Leaders Summit 2015 held in Seoul.Stressing that Korea is one of the highest emission-producing countries within the OECD, Ban urged business leaders to join th

Samsung Heavy Industries president Park Dae-young reportedly talked down Indian shipbuilding capabilities after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, visiting Seoul on Tuesday.“India’s shipbuilding technology lags far behind South Korea’s. It’s too early to worry about shipbuilding technology being leaked,” Park told reporters after the meeting in a Seoul hotel. India’s state-run shipping company Cochin Shipyard recently inked a deal with Samsung Heavy to win a tender issued by Gail, India’s sta

POSCO, South Korea’s largest steelmaker, is betting on India to fuel its growth.POSCO said it is ramping up efforts to develop more infrastructure and operations at the India office, aiming to meet the needs of the country’s rising demand for locally produced steel. POSCO India recently reshuffled its unit and integrated local offices to focus on “glocalization,” a practice of adapting a product or service specifically to each region or culture. The move is in line with POSCO CEO Kwon Oh-joon’s

The nation’s telecom industry is once again failing to keep in step with the regulatory authority’s attempts to provide consumers with convenience.In April, the Korea Communications Commission announced that measures would be implemented to allow mobile phones on corporate contracts to be used in confirming the identity of the user.Although the KCC said that the new service would be made available from May, local carriers are far from ready for the move. In Korea, online financial and commercial

South Korean retail giant Shinsegae Group has raised more than 650 billion won ($598 million) by selling its Samsung Life Insurance shares in a stock block deal.According to finance industry sources, the two Shinsegae arms ― Shinsegae Department Store and Emart ― each sold 3 million shares of Samsung Life Insurance, at 109,200 won per share. The sale price was 6.27 percent lower than the 116,500 won at which the shares closed trading on Thursday. Foreign investors bought 74 percent of the sold s

Hanwha Engineering and Construction saw its sales drop about 650 billion won ($594 million) last year, due to slowing overseas and domestic performance, data showed Thursday. According to the corporate analysis service CEO Score, Hanwha E&C’s overall sales dipped 17.2 percent compared to 2013 to come in at 3.12 trillion won. The fall was fueled by both overseas and domestic sales dropping respectively by 14.4 percent and 19.1 percent. The company’s domestic decline has been attributed to its dec

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering is reviewing plans to acquire the defunct STX Group’s French cruise-ship maker. According to news reports, DSME was planning to acquire a two-thirds stake in STX France.The company, however, downplayed the reports, saying that the plans were in their early stages. “The company has received a proposal regarding the acquisition of STX France, (but) so far nothing has been decided,” the company said in the statement. STX France is a subsidiary of STX Offsh

Hyosung Corp., the flagship firm and cash cow of Hyosung Group, is suffering from a continued profit slump, data suggested. Hyosung’s net profit for 2014 came in at 184.9 billion won ($169.3 million), down 31.9 percent compared to 2010, according to data released Monday by the corporate assessment website CEO Score.Analysts attributed Hyosung’s profit decline to the slowdown experienced across the company’s portfolio with the exception of its textiles business. The data said Hyosung’s industrial

POSCO, the nation’s top steelmaker, is accelerating the disposal of nonessential real estate assets as it seeks to tidy up its balance sheet and restructure for a slimmer organization.The steelmaker on Sunday announced it sold a Lotte Mart building and its 5,920 square meter plot of land in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province, to Lotte Shopping, the operator of Lotte Duty Free. The portfolio, worth about 20 billion won, includes idle residential sites nearby and a plot of land where an apartment w

The CEO of Coex Mall in southern Seoul has announced plans to make Coex and the adjacent Korea World Trade Center a hub for meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions, otherwise known as the MICE industry. This will show the evolution of shopping malls from a collection of shops to an industry hub that goes beyond retail, said Byun Bo-kyung, president and CEO of Coex. “Korea needs to develop a MICE cluster. While the government has chosen MICE as (one of) the new growth engines, the truth

Dongkuk Steel Mill, the country’s third-largest steelmaker, is considering closing down a shipbuilding plate factory as part of its restructuring efforts, the company said Tuesday.According to its regulatory filing, Dongkuk is reviewing a plan to stop its factory operation in Pohang, North Gyeongsang Province. The line has an annual production capacity of 1.9 million tons.If the factory closes, it will follow the first plate mill’s closure in 2012, and only one plate mill with a 1.5 million-ton

Pos-HiaL, an alumina supplier in which POSCO has a 51 percent stake, filed for court receivership last week, company officials said. It is the first time in the steelmaker’s 47-year history that one of its affiliates has been put under court supervision.Pos-HiaL was established in 2012 as a joint venture between POSCO M-Tech, POSCO’s raw materials arm, and alumina manufacturer KC Corporation. The company, however, has faced continued losses due to low demand and oversupply in the LED market.Acco

Buying a McLaren vehicle is buying “technology and craftsmanship,” according to David Mclntyre, the newly appointed Asia-Pacific director of the British supercar maker.The “small” U.K.-based supercar maker is finally making inroads in the Korean market, having launched its first showroom in southern Seoul on Wednesday. McIntyre has long experience in Korea’s high-end auto import market. Until recently he headed the local branch of Jaguar Land Rover, and the brands saw massive sales rises under h

The heads of the three major South Korean shipbuilders will attend the Offshore Technology Conference opening in Houston, Texas, from May 4-7, the companies said Thursday.Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Jung Sung-leep, Hyundai Heavy Industries chairman Choi Kil-seon and Samsung Heavy Industries president Park Dae-young are expected to hold meetings there for overseas market expansion and participate in sideline events.Most notable is Jung’s appearance, which will mark his first public e

A model poses next to McLaren’s 650S Spider supercar at the carmaker’s first South Korean showroom, which opened in Seoul on Wednesday. (McLaren Korea)

Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering will make more than 100 shipbuilding-related patents available to small and medium-sized enterprises, company officials said Wednesday.Under the plans, DSME will open up 105 patented technologies related to vessels powered with liquefied natural gas to SMEs. The shipbuilder invested about 50 billion won ($47 million) into developing the technologies. The shipbuilder will sign a business contract with the South Gyeongsang Province branches of the Creativ

The battle for opening a single downtown duty-free shop is heating up under the watchful eyes of the chiefs of some of the nation’s largest conglomerates. The new duty-free store in central Seoul, whose license will be granted in July, is seen as a golden opportunity for local retail giants to open up a new revenue stream. While the domestic retail market is nearing saturation, the duty-free market has expanded rapidly in recent years, recording double-digit growth since 2010. Between 2010 and 2