The government held a meeting Tuesday to discuss preparations for an international summit on climate change and sustainable development, which South Korea will host late next month. Officials from the foreign, environment, finance and trade ministries and other agencies attended the sixth preparatory session for the Partnering for Green Growth and the Global Goals summit to be held virtually from May 30-31, the foreign ministry said. In the meeting, Foreign Minister Chung Eui-yong underscored

South Korean stocks edged down Tuesday amid increased valuation pressure, with investors taking to the sidelines ahead of a meeting of the US Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The Korean won rose against the US dollar. The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) slipped 2.11 points, or 0.07 percent, to close at 3,215.42 points. Trading volume was moderate at about 1.5 billion shares worth some 16.8 trillion won ($15.1 billion), with gainers outnumbering losers 437 to 417. Fore

South Korea's Lotte Duty Free retained its second spot among global travel retailers in 2020, with China Duty Free Group (CDFG) leaping to the No. 1 position, an industry report showed Tuesday. Lotte Duty Free ranked second worldwide with 4.82 billion euros ($5.82 billion) in sales last year, the same standing as that a year earlier, according to the Moodie Davitt report. Lotte Duty Free benefited from Chinese resellers who buy products in large quantities and sell them back home, government s

Trilateral cooperation among South Korea, China and Japan is at a "crossroads between a leap or stagnation," Second Vice Foreign Minister Choi Jong-moon said Tuesday, hoping that the neighboring countries will work together to move their relationships forward. Choi made the remark during an event to mark the founding of the Seoul-based Trilateral Cooperation Secretariat set up by the three countries to facilitate cooperation in a region long plagued by tensions over history and other

Hyundai Steel Co., South Korea's No. 2 steelmaker, said Tuesday it swung to the black in the first quarter from a year earlier on strong sales amid the global economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. For the three months that ended March 31, Hyundai Steel posted a net profit of 219.9 billion won ($197.8 million), shifting from a loss of 115.4 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. The company said price hikes of its products gave a boost to the quarterly bott

South Korean battery maker Samsung SDI Co. said Tuesday its first-quarter earnings jumped on a low base effect and solid demand for electric vehicle (EV) battery products. Its net profit reached 150 billion won ($135 million) in the January-March period, up from 729 million won a year earlier, as it basked in a sharp rise in gains from equity ties with a display affiliate, Samsung SDI said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit soared 146.7 percent on-year to 133.2 billion won, and sales inc

Samsung Electronics Co. expanded its presence in the Indian smartphone market in the first quarter of the year on the back of multiple new handsets, a report showed Tuesday, as the South Korean tech giant aims to fend off challenges from Chinese players. Samsung represented 20 percent of the smartphone shipments in India in the first quarter, up from 16 percent a year earlier, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research. The company remained in the runner-up spot in the Indian smartph

Naver Corp., South Korea's dominant internet portal and search engine, said Tuesday it aims to lead the local web browser market with its own product named Whale in three years. Whale -- a Chromium-based web browser released in October 2017 -- is the fourth mostly used web browsing tool in terms of the market share. Google Inc.'s Chrome topped the list with more than a whopping 60 percent. "Naver aims to top the local web browser market in three years," Kim Hyo, a Naver official, sai

SEOUL/PAJU -- Unification Minister Lee In-young urged North Korea on Tuesday to implement inter-Korean summit agreements and come out for talks as he marked the third anniversary of a historic 2018 summit between President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Lee made the remarks during an event organized by civic groups to celebrate the anniversary of the Panmunjom Declaration adopted after the summit talks on April 27, 2018, stressing that South Korea is willing to resume talks wi

The number of South Koreans in the agro-fishery sector declined 9.5 percent last year from five years earlier amid rapid aging and younger people's movements to cities, data showed Tuesday. The number of people engaged in the farming and fishery segments totaled 2.64 million last year, compared with 2.92 million in 2015, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The number of households in the agro-fishery sector came to 1.18 million last year, down 4.5 percent from five years earlier. The

Samsung Electronics Co., the world's leading memory chip producer, on Tuesday released a high performing enterprise solid state drive (SSD) that supports the latest serial attached SCSI (SAS) interface. The PM1653 is the industry's first 24G SAS SSD made with sixth-generation V-NAND memory chips, according to Samsung, with its storage capacity ranging from 800 gigabytes to 30.72 terabytes for enterprise server systems. SAS is a high-speed data transfer interface used for servers or storage dev

S-Oil Corp., South Korea's No. 3 refiner, said Tuesday it turned to the black in the first quarter from a year earlier on rising prices of petrochemical products and inventory-related gains. S-Oil's net income reached 344.7 billion won ($310.1 million) in the January-March period, turning from a loss of 880.6 billion won a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Its logged a higher-than-expected operating profit of 629.2 billion won in the first quarter, the highest in five year

South Korea's investment in startups spiked nearly 61 percent in the first quarter of the year amid hopes of high returns, government data showed Tuesday. A total of 1.25 trillion won ($1.12 billion) was invested in promising venture firms and startups in the January-March period, up 61.1 percent from a year earlier, according to the data from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups. It was the highest amount for the first quarter and the second-largest quarterly figure after the 1.41 trillion won f

Samsung Electronics Co. on Tuesday launched a new robot vacuum cleaner with upgraded artificial intelligence (AI) solutions here as the tech giant eyes to boost home appliance sales amid the pandemic-driven stay-at-home trend. The BESPOKE JetBot AI vacuum cleaner comes in five colors at a price of 1.59 million won ($1,430). The product, which was first unveiled at the all-digital Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2021, is equipped with Intel's Movidius AI solution and utilizes LiDAR and 3-D sens

Public organizations will have to choose only eco-friendly cars when purchasing new automobiles, in line with the country's green energy drive, the industry ministry said Tuesday. "In order to speed up the transition, it is necessary to create new demands," the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement. The eco-friendly cars refer to electric vehicles (EVs) and hydrogen fuel-cell cars, as well as hybrid models. South Korea launched a rule in 2016 that required publi

Retail sales in South Korea jumped 18.5 percent in March from a year earlier on the back of seasonal promotions by offline stores, with local consumers also turning to "revenge shopping" amid the prolonged virus pandemic. The combined sales of 26 major offline and online retailers reached 13.1 trillion won ($11.7 billion) last month, up from 11.1 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data compiled by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Sales from offline stores jumped

South Korea said Tuesday it will strengthen support to exporters facing a hike in freight costs by increasing marine shipping services amid the recovery of global trade from the new coronavirus pandemic. Under the plan, South Korea plans to add two new scheduled services for the route to the Americas per month to cope with a shortage in shipping, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The government plans to add more ships for routes to Europe and Southeast Asia depending on

South Korea's demand for natural gas is expected to rise 15 percent through 2034, data showed Tuesday, on the back of higher demand from hydrogen fuel cell cars and liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering ships. The country's annual demand for natural gas is expected to reach 47.9 million tons in 2034, compared with 41.7 million tons estimated for this year, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Of the volume, the demand from the industrial segment is especially anticipated to

Major South Korean credit card issuer Samsung Card Co. said Tuesday its net profit soared nearly 23 percent in the first quarter of the year on a rebound in consumer confidence. Net profit stood at 138.4 billion won ($124.7 million) in the January-March period, up 23.4 percent from a year earlier, the company said in a regulatory filing. Operating profit jumped 23.1 percent on-year to 185.3 billion won, with sales rising 0.6 percent to 918.1 billion won. Samsung Card attributed its stellar fi

A state-run defense development agency said Tuesday it has completed the development of a new high power and high sensitivity radar technology capable of detecting stealth fighter jets. The new technology will be used for wide area surveillance to monitor military aircraft operated by neighboring countries near the Korean Peninsula, according to the Agency for Defense Development. "Securing a homegrown radar technology to detect warplanes with a low radar cross section was essential as th