South Korea's consumer prices grew at a slower pace last month amid government efforts to keep inflationary pressure down, a report showed Wednesday.The country's consumer price index rose 1.5 percent from a year earlier in June, compared with a 2.2 percent on-year gain the previous month, according to the report by Statistics Korea.July's reading marks the first time since July 2009 that inflatio

Hwang calls for introduction of peak salary systemThe ruling Saenuri Party chairman Hwang Woo-yea said on Tuesday that his party would take steps to obligate all businesses to set the retirement age at 60.At present, companies are only recommended to set the retirement age at 60. The average retirement age for local firms with over 300 employees is 57.4, and people actually retire at age 53 on average, according to the Korea Labor Institute.“We will initially push for extending the legal retirem

The Korea Development Bank said Tuesday it dropped the plan to take over HSBC’s 11 retail branches in Korea. KDB said in a statement that it agreed with HSBC to stop acquisition talks due to disagreements over employment conditions, and to no longer seek to buy the U.K.-based bank’s retail operations here.The state-run bank had begun talks with HSBC in April to acquire its local retail branches in the form of purchase and assumption, which does not involve a transfer of money as KDB was to take

Shipments of South Korean vehicles to Africa and the Middle East soared nearly 35 percent in the first half of this year, helping the regions emerge as the country’s biggest markets, industry data showed Tuesday.South Korea’s five carmakers led by Hyundai Motor Co. exported $1.28 billion worth of vehicles to African nations in the January-June period, up 34.4 percent from a year ago, according to data compiled by the Korea Automobile Manufacturers Association.The other companies are Kia Motors C

The world’s largest solar plant on water went into operation on Tuesday, paving the way for the commercialization of a new solar energy provider, said Korea Water Resources Corp., or K-water. The state-run water service company organized the three-year project in August 2008, and Korean industrial solutions firm LSIS undertook the plant construction in 2011 on Hapcheon Dam in Hapcheon, South Gyeongsang Province. “K-water plans to form partnerships with private firms for the standardization and o

Foreign investors are cutting back their stakes in major Korean companies amid a sliding stock market hard hit by the European debt crisis.But they are expanding ownership at the nation’s top two conglomerates Samsung and Hyundai, Chaebol.com, a website tracking Korean conglomerate owners, revealed Tuesday. According to the research firm, 93 affiliates of the nation’s top 10 conglomerates saw their combined foreign ownership decline from 20.19 percent in March to 19.79 percent this month. The 0.

The number of Koreans who use smartphones with the Long Term Evolution network is expected to pass the 40-million subscriber mark in 2013, a Seoul-based consulting firm forecast on Tuesday.ROA Consulting said that the number of subscribers may hit 42 million, marking a new era in the domestic telecommunications industry. According to the company’s report, about seven out of 10 mobile device users in Korea will use a smartphone with 4G LTE technology in 2013. This represents a significant jump fr

Korean credit card firms earned more than 2 trillion won ($1.76 billion) from their secondary businesses last year as they scrambled to diversify profit sources, industry data showed Tuesday.The card issuers’ combined revenue from insurance sales, travel agency business and mail orders reached 2.45 trillion won in 2011, up 36 percent from 1.84 trillion won a year earlier, according to the data by the Korea Credit Finance Association. Their ancillary revenue has grown five-fold in 10 years, with

Korea earned income by selling its cultural products and services this year on the back of the popularity of Korean culture in overseas countries, data by the central bank showed Tuesday.The account tracking exports and imports of cultural products and contents hit a record high of $30.1 million in May, compared with $12.5 million tallied in April, according to the Bank of Korea.The account also posted a surplus of a combined $72.7 million in the March-May period, marking the first time that it

The Korea-Peru free trade pact has boosted the competitiveness of Korea-made products over its first year of implementation, with the nation’s automotive and TV manufacturers outpacing Chinese and Japanese rivals in the South American country. The Korea International Trade Association said on Tuesday that the nation’s exports to Peru increased 28.9 percent in the 11 months up to June, though imports from the country decreased 7.6 percent during the same period. The growth figure surpassed the 6.

Cheil Worldwide Inc., South Korea’s largest advertising agency, said Tuesday that it has taken over a U.S. marketing firm in a bid to expand its global business.Cheil Worldwide said in a filing that its U.S. unit, Cheil USA Inc., acquired a 100 percent stake in Mckinney Ventures LLC. It did not elaborate on financial terms of the deal.The U.S. firm, founded in 1969, has led global advertising campaigns for Nike Inc. and Sony Corp. It posted $37 million in revenues in 2011.Cheil Worldwide said th