South Korean information technology solutions company LG CNS said Thursday it has teamed up with Japanese counterpart Fujitsu to strengthen its mathematical optimization consulting capacity to improve client services. LG CNS and Fujitsu‘s Korean unit has recently signed a memorandum of understanding to develop an optimization algorithm that runs on Fujitsu’s digital annealer computational architecture. Fujitsu‘s digital annealer is a quantum computing-inspired technology to s

Kyobo Life Insurance affiliates and KakaoBank signed a memorandum of understanding on data cooperation and financial platform projects, officials said Thursday. KakaoBank, South Korea’s biggest internet-only bank by user base, said it will work with Kyobo Book Centre, the country’s largest bookstore by sales, to develop and upgrade an alternative credit rating model. To do that, the lender plans to research and analyze nonfinancial data such as the history of book purchases by Kyob

LG Energy Solution said Thursday it is mulling a new electric vehicle battery plant worth $2 billion in the Canadian province of Ontario. According to South Korea’s leading battery firm, it is currently in talks with Ontario officials for the new battery factory. The envisioned Ontario plant is part of LG Energy Solution’s plan to invest 5.6 trillion won ($4.76 billion) in North America by 2024 and secure an additional annual production capacity of 55 gigawatt-hours in the regi

Despite the global supply disruption due to a chip shortage and supply bottleneck, coupled with sanctions imposed by the United States, Huawei Technologies will continue to stay committed to its South Korean partners, executives of the Chinese tech giant in Seoul said Wednesday evening. “While there are still many uncertainties on the road ahead of us, Huawei will remain open and collaborative,” Karl Song, the vice president of Huawei in charge of corporate communications, in a prer

  A local court has ruled in favor of a once-promising gymnast who became paralyzed after being injured in an excessive training regime enforced by school trainers, ordering related parties to pay her 1.2 billion won ($1 million) in compensation. The Incheon District Court said Thursday it has handed the 22-year-old plaintiff a partial win in the damage suit filed against Incheon Metropolitan City, the operator of the school she attended, and Incheon School Safety Mutual Aid Association.

EcoProBM, an electric vehicle battery material supplier for Samsung SDI and SK On, said Thursday it will build a cathode plant in Hungary worth 970 billion won ($825 million). The Hungarian plant, which is to be EcoProBM’s first overseas investment, will churn out 108,000 tons of cathode material per year once it goes fully operational in the second half of 2025. The production output would be enough to produce batteries for 1.35 million electric vehicles, the company said. Cathodes

South Korean fashion retailer LF Corp. said Thursday that it appointed Luc Goidadin, the former chief design officer of British fashion behemoth Burberry, as the new creative director of its luxury brand, LF Daks. With Goidadin at the helm, LF Daks will be under an overall restructuring process for a higher brand value, LF said. Since 1983, LF has been operating LF Daks through a licensing contract with British-heritage luxury fashion house Daks. Under Goidadin's leadership, LF Daks plans t

Foreign investors purchased a net of about $2.52 billion worth of shares on South Korea's stock market in November as they picked up chips and other related tech shares, central bank data showed Thursday. That marked a turnaround from the previous month's net selling of local stocks by foreign investors valued at $2.65 billion, according to the data from the Bank of Korea. The net purchase was mostly driven by increased investment in chipmakers and related tech firms amid expectations their ov

South Korea's central bank said Thursday that it will adjust the extent of its loose monetary policy stance "appropriately" in consideration of inflation, the pandemic and monetary policy directions of major economies. In a monetary policy report to lawmakers, the Bank of Korea (BOK) cited uncertainty linked to global supply disruptions, the resurgence of the coronavirus and the emergence of the omicron COVID-19 variant as major risk factors that could weigh on the economy. "As

South Korea's total population is expected to record its first decline this year, the statistics agency said Thursday, a grim assessment of its demographic situations amid the country's chronically low birthrate, rapid aging and a decline in incoming foreigners during the pandemic. The country's total population is estimated to have peaked at 51.84 million last year before falling to an estimated 51.75 million this year and an estimated 37.7 million in 2070, according to the latest medium varia

Nearly half of recently newlywed couples in South Korea had no children, data showed Thursday, amid the country's chronic low birthrate and changing social norms. Some 44.5 percent of the country's 1.18 million couples, who were legally married in the five years up to November 2020, did not have children, up from 42.5 percent a year earlier, according to the data from Statistics Korea. The newlyweds include first-time and other newly married couples residing in the country. The proportion of

President Moon Jae-in will share the nation’s democratic achievements at a summit hosted by US President Joe Biden on Tuesday night. During the two-day virtual “Summit for Democracy,” 110 countries will share opinions on how to guard against authoritarianism, eradicate corruption and promote respect for human rights. China and Russia were excluded. In the first part of the plenary session, Moon plans to share South Korea’s democratic achievements and outline the nati

Eight out of 10 families divided by the 1950-53 Korean War have yet to confirm the fate of their parents and siblings in North Korea, a government survey showed Thursday. According to the unification ministry's poll on 5,354 separated family members living in South Korea and abroad, 82 percent said they do not know whether their family members in the reclusive neighbor are still alive. Among those who are aware of the fate and whereabouts of their dispersed family members, half of them obtaine

The ruling Democratic Party (DP) on Thursday slammed the main opposition party's campaign chief for refusing to hold talks over his own proposal to spend 100 trillion won ($85 billion) to support small business owners and self-employed people hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The DP criticized Kim Chong-in, the campaign chief of People Power Party (PPP)'s presidential nominee Yoon Suk-yeol, for stepping back from an idea he floated for the government to allocate 100 trillion won to compensate damag