South Korea said Wednesday it plans to more than double the ceiling on the country's low-interest rate loans to Indonesia over the next five years in a bid to strengthen bilateral cooperation. Under the agreement between the two nations, the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) will be expanded to US$1.5 billion in 2022-2026 from the existing $600 million set aside for 2016-2021, according to Seoul's finance ministry. South Korea launched the EDCF program in 1987 in an effort to suppor

Samsung chief's first trip to US in 5 years suggests recovery of tech giant’s global network, leadership revival. But what's next?

Ansan Urban Corp., a corporation run by the local government of Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, is resolving labor-management conflicts and improving workplace culture with the aid of the Korea Labor and Employment Service. The service, a state-run organization under the Ministry of Employment and Labor, offers a wide range of services to help local firms solve a range of labor-involved issues. Ansan Urban Corp. is one of several companies that have successfully improved their labor-management relat

In South Korea, many firms located outside of Greater Seoul suffer difficulties in recruiting young employees, as they continue to move to the capital and nearby areas to find jobs. Ercohs, a baby food company based in Daejeon, faced the same problem in the past. The company had to deal with problems caused by its aging workforce as well as a high turnover rate for young workers. Due to the high turnover rate for young workers, employees who stayed at the company were burdened with additio

SEJONG -- The tally of those subject to the comprehensive real estate holding tax -- individuals or corporations -- exceeded 1 million this year for the first time since the nation introduced the tax in June 2005. According to the National Tax Service, almost 1.03 million individuals and corporations are supposed to pay comprehensive real estate taxes in 2021. The figure consists of 947,000 homeowners and 79,600 landowners. This shows that the number of comprehensive real estate holding tax ta

Posco Chemical Co., a unit of South Korean steel giant Posco, said Wednesday it has completed the construction of a new refractory plant in the southern city of Pohang as part of its efforts to boost production of basic industrial materials. The 49.2 billion won ($41.5 million) plant has an annual production capacity of some 21,700 tons of unfired refractory materials, which will boost the company's combined annual production capacity of the materials by 14 percent to 52,500 tons, it added. Refr

Global shipbuilding conglomerate Hyundai Heavy Industries Group said Wednesday it will establish the world's first technical guidance for offshore green hydrogen plants To that end, the group's affiliates -- Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (KSOE) and its subsidiary Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. -- have signed a preliminary deal with ABS, a US ship quality assurance and risk management company. The deal is aimed at setting up the world's first guideline for the design of offsho

National Assembly Speaker Park Byeong-seug met with the World Health Organization (WHO) chief to discuss cooperation on vaccines and humanitarian aid to North Korea, his office said Wednesday. During the meeting with WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Park also emphasized that South Korea is the "optimal location" for a bio and vaccine workforce development hub planned by the WHO, the office said. "Korea is equipped with the educational infrastructure and global v

A Korean woman had a stillbirth after being confirmed with COVID-19 and the deceased fetus tested positive, officials said Wednesday. It is the first COVID-19 death in Korea in a child under the age of 19. “The route of infection has not been confirmed,” authorities said. “It was a stillbirth case before birth registration, so we decided to separate it from the confirmed cases.” The mother’s gestation period was 24 weeks and she was not vaccinated against COVID-

Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) will open an office in Costa Rica, as part of an agreement reached Monday.  The agreement was signed following a meeting between Costa Rican delegation led by President Carlos Alvarado Quesada and GGGI President Chair Ban Ki-moon and GGGI Director-General Frank Rijsberman. “With the host country agreement and a new country office in San Jose, I hope GGGI can help Costa Rica to do more in-country and share Costa Rica’s experience with other

IT giant offers sneak peek into new metaverse platform Arcverse, world’s first artificial intelligence operating in Korean

Democratic Party election committee officials resign en masse to support Lee

Samsung Electronics will invest $17 billion into its foundry sector, a business that makes money by manufacturing chips clients have designed. But some experts say that despite the staggering size of the investment, the South Korean tech giant is unlikely to challenge the global foundry race led by TSMC. Instead of splurging cash, a structural change must occur to catch up with TSMC, a No. 1 foundry player with a global market share of 58 percent as of second quarter this year, they said. &ld

Senior officials of the ruling Democratic Party offered to resign en masse on Wednesday, saying they hope to inject fresh vigor into the flailing campaign of its presidential nominee Lee Jae-myung. Rep. Youn Kwan-suk, the party's secretary-general, said the decision involved himself and four other lawmakers in political posts who wished to "put the party before self." The others are chief policymaker Park Wan-joo, deputy chief policymaker You Dong-soo, chief spokesperson Koh Yong-jin

Hanwha Solutions said Wednesday it has invested $100 million in a Houston-based tech company Lancium, which aims to build bitcoin mines across Texas that will run on renewable energy. According to the solar-to-hydrogen business unit of South Korean conglomerate Hanwha Group, Lancium has purchased 9.5 square kilometers of land in Texas and plans to establish over 2,000 megawatts of generating capacity across multiple sites. Lancium develops software and technology that connects bitcoin mines