S. Korea to expand financial support for materials, parts, equipment sectors next yearSouth Korea will expand its financial support programs for materials, parts and equipment sectors next year, as it seeks to boost competitiveness in the key industrial sectors, a senior official said Thursday.Vice Finance Minister Kim Yong-beom made the remarks at a meeting with relevant officials earlier in the day amid a trade spat over Japan's export restrictions against South Korea. Kim said the government

Telecom firm KT said Thursday it will provide an optimal emergency rescue protocol using 5G and artificial intelligence technology by collaborating with the National Fire Agency and Severance Hospital. The triumvirate is jointly devising a new smart emergency response service that embeds 5G network for medical emergencies from the 119 emergency call reception to ambulance transportation and hospital emergency room care. As the first step, KT and the NFA on Thursday launched a 5G-based 119 video

The US Department of Commerce has said it lowered its antidumping duty on hot-rolled steel from Hyundai Steel Co., South Korea's second-biggest steelmaker.The department said it "preliminarily" determined that the weighted average dumping margin for Hyundai Steel is 0.94 percent.The figures represent a sharp drop from 5.44 percent in June, according to Hyundai Steel on Thursday. The latest move came a year after the department launched an administrative review of the antidumping duty o

Samsung Electronics Co. is widely expected to maintain its No. 1 status in the global smartphone market this year, but its Chinese rival Huawei Technologies Co. will narrow the gap with the world's largest smartphone maker in terms of market share, an industry report showed Thursday.The South Korean tech giant is tipped to ship 323 million smartphones for a 21.3 percent share in 2019, according to market researcher Strategy Analytics.The estimated shipments and market share are both slightly up

The global semiconductor market will likely rebound next year on increased demand that may have been held back on hope of additional price drops, the Bank of Korea said Thursday, apparently suggesting a recovery of the local economy as well.South Korea's exports have dropped for 12 consecutive months as of November amid the prolonged trade dispute between the United States and China but also because of an extended slump in the global semiconductor market.Semiconductors alone accounted for more t

Japan is threatening to overtake South Korea's No. 1 status in China's imported cosmetics market this year, industry data showed Thursday, mainly on the back of the growing popularity of low- to mid-priced "J-beauty" productsJapanese companies accounted for 25.2 percent of China's imported cosmetics in the January-October period, closing the gap between South Korean rivals, whose combined market share was 25.5 percent, according to industry tracker IHS Global Trade Atlas.France came in

　Beef imported from the United States increased significantly, accounting for over 50 percent of South Korea’s imported beef market this year, a trade promotion agency said.　Korea imported 209,034 tons of US beef in the January-October period, up 7.9 percent from 193,685 tons tallied during the same period a year earlier, according to data from the Korea International Trade Association. 　US beef made up more than 50 percent of all imported beef here for the first time since 2003, when Kore

An envisioned joint venture between Posco Energy and US-based FuelCell Energy is making little progress due to mutual differences, an industry insider said Wednesday.The energy unit of steel giant Posco produces molten carbonate fuel cell -- dubbed a second-generation technology -- with technology transferred from the US company.  FuelCell Energy CEO Jason Few was in Seoul to discuss the JV proposal. The talks, however, ended without any agreement, sources noted. The two had signed a memora

Samsung, LG, Hyundai Motor share future plans, achievements in non-memory chip development

 In August, a Korean food section opened in Paris’ finer-goods department store Bon Marche’s La Grande Epicerie de Paris food corner. Some 40 Korean food products were introduced in the new section, targeting the upper echelons and Michelin-starred chefs of Paris. It has been 20 years since the last time a country-specific groceries area was featured in Bon Marche. The launch of Korean food in a foreign country none other than France, famous for its epicurean cuisine culture, co

The number of executives leading operations of 30 major conglomerates in South Korea has been falling amid corporate restructuring carried out to offset deteriorating profits and reflect generation shifts in leadership.According to CEOScore, a local corporate tracker, a total of 9,742 executives from 262 affiliates of the 30 business groups in Korea, were registered as of end-September, slightly lower than 9,795 reported in the same month four years ago.Samsung Group slashed 15 percent of execut

Overturning a wage deal clinched in June, unionized workers at Renault Samsung have voted to hold a sit-in protest, according to members of the union Wednesday, although the automaker said it would continue with the labor-management negotiations which kicked off in September. Of more than 2,000 unionized workers at the South Korean unit of the French automaker Renault, 66.2 percent voted to go on strike. The labor union and management had reached a wage deal on June 24, bringing an end to a

Mercedes-Benz Korea said Wednesday it has kicked off its Connected Car Startup Hackathon, a competition between startups to develop connected car services for innovative future mobility.The 48-hour nonstop event is taking place at the EQ Future Pavilion set up by the automaker in Sinsa-dong, Seoul. Nine startups that develop and produce connected car technologies such as mobility, UX, maintenance and charging have made it to the final, the company said.The event was organized in a joint partners

The Industry Ministry said Wednesday it has set aside around 9.4 trillion won ($7.8 billion) in its budget for 2020, up 23 percent from this year, to focus on technology independence from Japan and the expansion of renewable energy. The budget plan for the ministry was finalized through a resolution of the National Assembly on Tuesday. “In response to Japan’s export controls, the budget for supporting the materials and parts equipment has increased significantly from 669 billion won

South Korea and the United States have agreed to reduce inconveniences South Korean travelers experience when entering the US mainland, the transport ministry said Wednesday. In its annual aviation security meeting held in Washington last week, the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport said it signed a "joint statement" with the Transportation Security Administration to work on removing an interview for Koreans entering the US mainland, additional security checks and other inco