Korean automaker to expand eco-friendly mobility services in Red Sea coastal development project

The Export-Import Bank of Korea, or Eximbank, announced it will form a 1 trillion won ($745 million) fund to support businesses in high-tech strategic industries, especially semiconductors and batteries. The policy lender will put in 150 billion won toward the fund which will close out at 1 trillion won. The fund will be used to provide preferential interest rates and loan limits to businesses related to chips, battery, bio, future mobility and electric engineering. It is the second fund establi

LX Holdings Chairman Koo Bon-joon said Monday he would enhance the group’s crisis response system in a bid to enhance its responsiveness to business uncertainties at home and globally. “The year 2024 will be an important inflection point as we prepare for the next three years of LX’s leap,” Koo said during this year’s annual shareholders meeting held at the company’s headquarters in Seoul. Koo’s comments come as LX Group spun off from LG Group in 2021

With the rapid influx of global e-commerce into the domestic market, the Fair Trade Commission is set to launch an extensive market survey starting Tuesday, to examine the evolving landscape and structure of the e-commerce market in Korea. The survey marks the first step in gathering data to produce a policy report slated for release by the end of this year. The report's objective is to proactively identify and analyze fair trade and consumer issues arising from shifts in e-commerce market

The Industrial Bank of Korea on Monday announced the establishment of a strategic investment fund worth 100 billion won ($75 million) to nurture businesses with innovative digital technologies. The fund will be pooled by the policy lender and its affiliate IBK Capital, with each investing 90 billion won and 10 billion won, respectively. As IBK Capital is more experienced in venture funding, it will manage the fund as a general partner, IBK explained. The fund aims to support platform operators w

A majority of large companies in South Korea disadvantage applicants who craft their resumes using artificial intelligence services, such as ChatGPT, according to a survey released Sunday. The Labor Ministry and the Korea Employment Information Service unveiled a report on employment trends in the second half of 2023, which was based on a survey of human resource managers at the nation’s top 500 companies by sales. The survey was conducted from Nov. 20 to Dec. 22 last year, with 315 out of

Asiana Airlines’ Boeing 747-400, the last Boeing 747 aircraft in South Korea, is honored with a grand water salute at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Monday to mark its final flight. Known as the “Queen of the Skies,” the iconic aircraft was first introduced in Korea in 1999. The Asiana aircraft has flown nearly 97,000 hours, completing over 18,000 flights and covering 88 million kilometers. (Asiana Airlines)

EcoPro, a South Korean battery materials holding company, said Monday that it had invested $11 million for a 9 percent share in Green Eco Nickel, an Indonesian nickel smelter operated by Chinese battery materials firm GEM, to expand the supply of nickel, a crucial raw material for lithium-ion battery production. The Green Eco Nickel smelter, situated on Sulawesi Island in Indonesia, boasts annual production of approximately 20,000 tons of nickel. The investment will allow EcoPro to gain addition

Hana Bank announced Monday that it has inked a memorandum of understanding with global digital solutions provider ICE Digital Trade to innovate trading procedures, especially digitalizing trade-related documents and communications. ICE Digital Trade, part of New York-listed Intercontinental Exchange, connects over 56 global banks and 65,000 member companies through its digital trade transaction solution, called DSUA or Databridge Services & Users Agreement. This partnership aims to streamlin

Mini Korea will hold an exhibition to shed light on the past, present and future of the brand in Seoul from Friday to April 21, the premium small car brand under BMW Group said Monday. Showcasing the new all-electric Mini Cooper and new all-electric Mini Countryman, the "Mini Heritage and Beyond" exhibition will be held at the K Museum of Contemporary Art in Gangnam-gu. The new Mini EVs are to hit the local market later this year. (BMW Group Korea)

Plastic surgery remains the top choice for medical tourists visiting Korea, with dermatology and dentistry gaining popularity recently, according to data from Creatrip, a Korean tourism platform, Monday. The data is derived from Creatrip’s market analysis of its medical tourism offerings in January and February this year. Plastic surgery emerged as the leading preference among inbound tourists, with reservation rates surging 220 percent from the previous year, accompanied by a 270 percent

With the concept of software-defined vehicles growing more prominent in the automobile industry, so is demand for automative cybersecurity. Fescaro, a leading cybersecurity specialist, has what it calls a "defense-in-depth" system that has a multi-layered strategy to provide security for the security of the car's system. The first layer cuts off the primary risks by filtering the inbound communications through a security gateway. The secondary layer applies security solutions to t

The race for leadership in the burgeoning high bandwidth memory chips market is growing fiercer, as Nvidia revealed its plan to secure orders for the cutting-edge component from Samsung Electronics, the Korean chip giant seeking to outsmart crosstown rival SK hynix. At a media briefing last week, Jensen Huang, the co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, openly endorsed Samsung Electronics and unveiled the company's plan to use the Korean chipmaker's HBM chips in the future. US-based Nvidia is the biggest

Local crypto exchange operator Bithumb Korea is set to simplify its corporate governance, spinning off its non-exchange business in a move designed to accelerate its stock market debut planned for next year. Bithumb Korea will separate its holdings business under a new name, tentatively coined Bithumb Investment, the company announced through a regulatory filing Friday. While the existing unit will be in charge of operating the country's No. 2 crypto exchange Bithumb, the newly launched uni

Korean Air to sign $13.7b deal for 33 Airbus aircraft