Hyundai Mipo Dockyard Co., a South Korean shipbuilder, has clinched a 331 billion won ($311 million) deal to build 10 vessels, the company said Monday.Under the deal with an American shipping firm, Hyundai Mipo will deliver the vessels carrying petrochemical goods by June 2015, the company said in a regulatory filing.Hyundai Mipo, a unit of South Korea’s leading shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries Co., did not identify the name of the buyer.Hyundai Mipo said it targets orders worth $3.2 billion

POSCO, South Korea’s leading steelmaker, said Tuesday it has acquired a stake in a Canadian mining company as part of its efforts to diversify its profit source. A consortium that includes POSCO has secured a 15 percent stake worth $1.1 billion in ArcelorMittal Mines Canada, the company said in a statement. POSCO will invest $270 million, with China Steel, the largest steelmaker in Taiwan, to pay $540 million for the deal, it said. The remainder needed for the acquisition will be raised from ins

Global tech titans are expected to stage a fierce competition for the dominant operating system for smart devices this year, as Samsung and Microsoft seek to reenter the market with “Tizen” and “Windows 8,” respectively, and Apple and Google are expected to bring forward the launch dates for new products. The world’s bestselling smartphone maker Samsung will launch smartphones with the new operating system “Tizen” in January in Japan, a local report said, citing Samsung officials. OS giant Intel

Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors saw their production of vehicles in the overseas market outstrip their domestic performance for the first time in 2012.In particular, the carmakers’ factories in the BRIC ― Brazil, Russia, India and China ― market significantly fueled their overseas manufacturing capacity, according to the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association.KAMA data showed that Hyundai-Kia’s vehicle production in the four fast-growing economies surpassed 2 million units for the first 11 mont

SK Group said Tuesday that it posted record exports of more than $60 billion (64.8 trillion won) last year.The group said the ratio of exports to its total earnings reached 74 percent. Main exporters of its business units included SK Innovation, SK Energy, SK Global Chemical, SK Hynix, SK Lubricants and SKC.The figure means SK supplied more than 10 percent of the nation’s total exports in 2012, according to estimates by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.In particular, four petrochemical-related

Assembly passes revised bill to collect more ‘comprehensive financial income’ tax

South Korea's trade surplus shrank from a year earlier as exports dropped at a faster rate than imports, the government said Tuesday.The country's trade surplus came to about US$2.03 billion last month, compared with a $4.48-billion surplus in November and $3.8-billion surplus in October.The drop comes mainly from a large reduction in exports, which dropped 5.5 percent from that of December 2011 to some $45.1 billion. Imports shrank 5.3 percent on-year to $43.07 billion, according to the Ministr

U.S. Internet company Yahoo Inc. on Monday halted its South Korean service, pulling out of one of the world's most wired countries after 15 years.Yahoo will halt all products, services and content of Yahoo Korea starting Dec. 31 in addition to ending customer support in Korea on the same day, the company wrote on its Korean Web site.In October, Yahoo announced a plan to pull out of South Korea as chief executive officer Marissa Mayer focuses more on stronger markets."The decision is part of Yaho

The combined market capitalization of South Korean firms listed on the main and secondary bourse ranks 15th among global peers by claiming 2.15 percent of the total, data showed Monday.The combined market cap of the world's 20 major stock markets reached US$52.7 trillion as of the end of November, increasing 9.56 percent from end of 2011, according to data by the bourse operator Korea Exchange.The KRX, which operates the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index and the tech-heavy KOSDAQ marke

South Korea's consumer prices grew at the slowest pace in four months in December, indicating that the country is keeping inflationary pressure under control, a government report showed Monday.The country's consumer prices index rose 1.4 percent in December from a year earlier, slowing from a 1.6 percent on-year gain in the previous month, according to the report by Statistics Korea. From a month earlier, it grew 0.2 percent.The on-year figure marked the slowest growth since August when the inde

Overseas orders clinched by South Korean builders rose almost 10 percent this year from the previous year, but they missed the government’s target of $70 billion, a report showed Sunday.Local builders won overseas orders worth $64.9 billion in 2012, up 9.8 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs. But the volume was lower than the government-set target of $70 billion, it added.The government said that the eurozone debt crisis led local builde

South Korea’s per-capita gross domestic product is estimated to only marginally inch up in 2012 compared with the previous year due to the slowing economy, a report showed Sunday.Korea’s per-capita GDP is estimated to reach $22,705 in 2012, up 1.3 percent from a year earlier, according to a report by Korea Investment & Securities Co.In calculating the figures, the full-year economic growth rate was estimated at 2.3 percent and the local currency was set at an average of 1,127.1 against the dolla

South Korea’s stock market will likely remain choppy with no clear direction this week amid mounting concerns over corporate earnings in the fourth quarter of this year, analysts said.Earnings estimates are expected to come down for the fourth-quarter, Park Jung-sup, an analyst at Daishin Securities.FnGuide Inc., a financial information provider, has said 114 major listed companies are forecast to report a combined operating profit of 30.4 trillion won ($28 billion) for the October-December peri