With all-in-one growth solution, Datarize collects W11.5 billion in series A funding

South Korea and India have agreed to resume negotiations to upgrade their bilateral trade pact next month after more than two years of hiatus, Seoul's trade ministry said Wednesday. The two nations implemented the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in January 2010 and began talks to upgrade the pact in 2015. But negotiations have been suspended since June 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other issues. South Korea's Trade Minister Yeo Han-koo and India's Commerce and In

Pernod Ricard Korea’s new “Time Well Spent” campaign will solidify its position as a market leader in the local whiskey market, which is constantly expanding, the liquor firm said Wednesday.  According to Pernod Ricard Korea’s marketing director Kim Kyung-yeon, the domestic imported whiskey market made 58 percent growth compared to 2019. “With increased public interest in whiskey, high-end whiskey categories and the malt whiskey saw significant growth -&ndash

The Ministry of Education is again drawing fire over sharing cartoons encouraging students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 despite the court order suspending vaccine mandate measures on education facilities for young students. On Friday, the ministry posted a cartoon on its social media account, titled “Why did these friends have to take out tteokbokki (rice cakes in a red chili sauce)?” The cartoon shows two students going to a diner for tteokbokki. The owner asks them whether

The prolonged lockdown in the Chinese city of Xi'an will have minimal impact on the performance of Samsung Electronics Co., which has a chip fabrication complex there, analysts said Wednesday. Samsung, the world's largest memory chip maker, temporarily adjusted operations at its NAND flash chips manufacturing base in the city late last month, following the city's draconian restrictions imposed on Dec. 22, banning its 13 million citizens from venturing out and doing nonessential activities, to s

South Korea's drug safety agency on Wednesday approved an authorization of US-based biotechnology company Novavax Inc.'s COVID-19 vaccine. The protein-based vaccine, Nuvaxovid, marks the fifth COVID-19 vaccine to get approval for use here, following the ones by British-Swedish pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and Oxford University, Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Moderna Inc. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety convened a panel of experts from both inside and outside to review the safe

SEOGWIPO -- One of the great mysteries in South Korean football in recent months has been the continued absence of Jeju United striker Joo Min-kyu on the senior men's national team. Though he won the scoring title in the top-flight K League 1 last year with 22 goals in 34 matches, Joo has been consistently overlooked by national team head coach Paulo Bento. The Portuguese boss has sidestepped questions about not picking Joo on multiple occasions, saying he doesn't just look at a player's goal t

South Korea's top 100 companies have seen their total market capitalization swell nearly 11 percent over the past one-year period, a corporate tracker said Wednesday. The combined market value of those leading firms came to 2,128 trillion won ($1.78 trillion) as of Jan. 3 this year, up 10.8 percent from a year earlier, according to Korea CXO Institute. The number of listed firms with a market cap of 1 trillion won or more stood at 288, up 54 from a year earlier. Global tech behemoth Samsung E

LG Electronics said Wednesday it has supplied its premium in-car infotainment system to be featured in the 2022 Mercedes-Benz EQS full-electric luxury sedan. LG’s system combines three displays – instrument cluster display, central information display and co-driver display – into a single, panoramic screen that stretches across the entire width of the car’s dashboard. Thanks to the use of a plastic organic light-emitting diode display, the South Korean tech giant said,

JEONJU -- The founder of South Korean budget carrier Eastar Jet Co. was sentenced to six years in prison on Wednesday for embezzlement of company funds and breach of trust. A district court in Jeonju, 240 kilometers south of Seoul, handed down the sentence to Eastar founder and independent lawmaker Lee Sang-jik after convicting him on several charges, including embezzlement. The Jeonju District Court also ordered Lee's immediate detention. Lee was indicted for causing about 43.9 billion won (

Main opposition presidential candidate Yoon Suk-yeol on Wednesday unveiled a set of measures to upgrade the country's gaming industry, including disclosing information on randomized in-game items, in his latest move to woo young male voters ahead of the upcoming election. Yoon of the People Power Party (PPP) said he would mandate game developers to disclose the odds of getting randomized items, which has been a hot topic among gamers here. In some online games, users pay to receive items ran

South Korea's money supply expanded in November as savings increased due in part to rising interest rates, central bank data showed Wednesday. The country's M2, a key gauge of the money supply, stood at 3,589.1 trillion won ($3.01 trillion) on average in November, up 1.1 percent, or 39.4 trillion won, from a month earlier, according to the preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK). The growth rate was the same as what was reported in October. Compared with a year earlier, the money supply

South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang said Wednesday it has exclusively launched the product lines of Nitori, Japan’s largest furniture and household goods brand. According to the company, Coupang will directly import Nitori products so that customers in Korea can conveniently purchase the brand’s items. Celebrating the launch, Coupang presents a limited-time offer from Wednesday to Friday. Any Coupang customer can receive four types of discount coupons -- discounts of 3,000 won ($