Galaxy smartphones, quantum dot light-emitting diode TVs made by Samsung Electronics Co. and Shin Ramyun produced by Nongshim Co. were recognized as South Korea's top brands in 2019, a local poll showed Sunday.According to a survey carried out on 30,000 people nationwide in November by Brandstock Corp., Samsung's Galaxy name ranked No. 1, getting 95.15 points out of a possible 100. (Yonhap)The premium QLED TVs made by the tech giant came in second with 94.95 points trailed by the spicy instant n

South Korea's Small and Medium Business Corp. said Sunday that it will open a global innovation growth center in Seattle to better help promising companies make inroads in the world's largest market.The public organization said the goal is to actively help growth of local unicorn startup companies that currently have valuations of 1 trillion won ($889.3 million) or more. Unicorn companies refer to very rare successful startups that have made a splash in their respective fields, such as Uber and

Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry Chairman Park Yong-maan (Yonhap)The head of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry urged businesses to strengthen ties with Moroccan firms, highlighting the country’s push for industrial development.“Morocco, which has signed free trade agreements with about 50 countries, holds geopolitical advantage for business expansion,” said Park Yong-maan, chairman of the KCCI, the nation’s largest group representing Korean businesses.“I wish for broader cooperati

GM Korea’s new research and development entity, dubbed GM Technical Center Korea, is expected to officially launch early next year, after its second-largest shareholder gave the green light despite strong opposition from its union, the company said Friday.The local unit of US auto giant General Motors said in an official notice that the “due date for the spinoff has been decided as Dec. 31 at a board meeting held on Dec. 18, and registration is slated for Jan. 2.”  (Yonhap)Roughly 3,000 workers

GM Korea, the South Korean unit of General Motors Co., said Friday that it plans to launch a separate R&D company early next year after completing the necessary procedures.Early this week, GM Korea held a shareholders meeting to approve the plan as the Korea Development Bank, the second-biggest shareholder in GM Korea, backed the carmaker's plan to spin off a research unit in a reversal of the state lender's opposition to the plan. (Yonhap)In a regulatory filing, GM Korea said the research unit,

Korea Aerospace Industries, the nation’s sole aircraft manufacturer, said Friday that it would accept the findings of an investigation identifying a defective part as the cause of a Marine Corps chopper crash in July.After a monthslong probe, a team of civilian, government and military experts said a defective rotor mast on the Marineon chopper had caused the crash that killed five military personnel. (Yonhap)The chopper crashed after the main rotor became detached from the airframe due to a cra

Heat-not-burn e-cigarettes accounted for 11.3 percent of all cigarettes sold in November, ministry data showed Friday.According to the Ministry of Economy and Finance, 288 million packs of cigarettes were sold here in November, a 1 percent on-year increase. Some 35 million packs of those were cigarettes used for HNB e-cigarette devices. Since the launch of the first HNB e-cigarette Iqos from Philip Morris International in May last year, interest in such devices has grown, sparking a steep increa

Samsung Electronics is beefing up its foundry business by utilizing cutting-edge extreme ultraviolet technology to attract global IT giants such as IBM and Qualcomm as major customers, according to the industry on Friday. US-based IT mogul IBM Corp. announced Friday that it will use Samsung Foundry’s 7-nanometer EUV process to manufacture power processors for the IBM Power Systems, IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE high-performance computing systems and cloud offerings. The 7-nm EUV process was a strategic

Transport Minister Kim Hyun-mee proposed in July that taxi drivers adopt an IT system similar to that of Uber in order to streamline their operations, but received no response, she said in a radio interview on Friday.“If you look at Uber service abroad, it is built to make reservations and pay through an IT platform and the drivers get (paid) for various supplementary services,” she said. “I believe that the nation’s taxi service will be improved if such a system is adopted,” she said, adding th

Sales of cigarettes in South Korea rose 1 percent in November from a year earlier, data showed Friday, amid an anti-smoking campaign and higher prices. (Yonhap)South Korean smokers purchased 288 million 20-cigarette packs in November, compared with 285.1 million in the same period of last year, according to data compiled by the Ministry of Economy and Finance.The figure represented a 20.5 percent drop from November 2014, just months before South Korea increased the price of cigarettes by 80 perc

US information technology giant IBM Corp. said Friday that South Korean chipmaker Samsung Electronics Co. will manufacture 7-nanometer microprocessors for its CPUs.According to IBM, Samsung will manufacture 7nm Power processors for IBM Power Systems, IBM Z and IBM LinuxONE high-performance computing systems and cloud offerings.  (Yonhap)The deal is expected to help Samsung, which has Qualcomm Inc. as one of its clients, to beef up its foundry business utilizing extreme ultraviolet process techno

South Korea plans to sell 99.6 trillion won ($88.53 billion) worth of Treasurys in 2019, down 6.8 trillion won from this year's estimated amount, the finance ministry said Thursday.The government plans to refinance 57.1 trillion won worth of state bonds due next year, up 12.6 trillion won from 2018, the ministry said, adding that a net 42.5 trillion won worth of state bonds will be sold next year, up 5.8 trillion won on-year.So far this year, the government has sold a total of 97.4 trillion won

A South Korean court on Thursday slapped a 2.8 billion won ($2.48 million) fine on Mercedes-Benz Korea for selling some 7,000 vehicles equipped with unauthorized parts in violation of Korea’s Clean Air Conservation Act and customs law.The Seoul Central District Court said a Benz employee surnamed Kim “has been arrested and sentenced to eight months in jail for failing to straighten out the matter for three years and a half on top of four penalties levied.” Kim was in charge of receiving approval

South Korea must increase its efforts to enforce laws against bribery of foreign public officials, as enforcement is weak in view of the size of the nation’s economy and its export-oriented nature, said a report released Thursday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.“The decrease in foreign bribery enforcement (in Korea) since 2011 is a cause for concern, especially in view of the size of the Korean economy, its export-oriented nature, and the geographical and industrial

Steel giant Posco has hired former the CEO of Daelim Industrial to seek the company’s future growth, it said Thursday in a statement.  Oh Gyu-seokOh Gyu-seok, former president of the local builder, will take charge of the newly established future growth division assigned to pave the way for the 50-year-old steelmaker struggling to find alternatives amid declining market demand for metal. Oh is the first outsider to take the top-level executive position at Posco. Along with Oh, Posco named Park S