South Korea is about to join the ranks of advanced countries in terms of gross domestic product based on purchasing power parity, a local think tank said Sunday in a report on Koreans’ actual living standards.The Hyundai Research Institute said that South Korea’s per capita GDP reached $22,778, the 34th largest in the world, in 2011, but its GDP by PPP per capita is estimated at $31,714, the world’s 25th highest.The wide gap between nominal and PPP-based GDP data apparently stems from below-aver

LG Display will exhibit its technology prowess in OLED and mobile panels at the Society for Information Display conference, held at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center from June 3-8 in the U.S. state of Massachusetts.The Korean display manufacturing giant said that it plans to showcase its 55-inch OLED panel, developed for the first time in the world, which it had originally considered too difficult to construct for large televisions.Using oxide-thin film transistor and four-color pixel

The government will move to increase the country’s reserves for farm and fishery products in an effort to help stabilize consumer prices, the Finance Ministry said.After a meeting of economic policymakers on Friday, the government said it plans to actively buy up farm products in advance and hold them in reserve to deal with a spike in prices. It added emergency imports of products that are in short supply can also be utilized to help increase the stockpile and alleviate inflationary pressure.“S

South Korean stocks will likely be exposed to greater volatility this week caused by disappointing U.S. and Chinese economic data and persevering eurozone woes, local analysts said Saturday.The country’s key stock index, the KOSPI, closed at 1,835.51 points on Friday, up 10.34 percent from a week earlier helped by a technical rebound and bargain hunting for big caps that had fallen in May.Analysts said despite the gains this week, lingering external uncertainties remain that could weigh down the

The world’s third-largest steelmaker POSCO will donate millions of dollars to support South Koreans forced to work in Japan during colonial rule, decades after it was set up through Japanese reparations.Other South Korean firms that also benefited from the reparations are being encouraged to follow suit, as victims of imperial Japan’s forced labor schemes or their descendants keep pressing for compensation.Japan’s brutal rule over Korea from 1910 to 1945 is still a source of resentment among old

South Korea will focus policy efforts more on boosting economic growth and allocate additional state funds to support small companies and exporters, Finance Minister Bahk Jae-wan said.“We need to make more effort to support economic growth as some progress has been made in terms of stabilization of prices,” Bahk told reporters in Seoul on Saturday. “We are not in a situation where we need an extra budget but we will try to use more state funds to support small firms and exporters.”Bahk reaffirme

Maintains above-consensus 3.5 percent GDP growth forecast for 2012Goldman Sachs said that it will up its won-dollar exchange rate outlook while maintaining South Korea’s above-consensus GDP growth forecast of 3.5 percent for 2012. It raised its won-dollar rate forecasts from 1,110, 1,080 and 1,040 on three-, six- and 12-month horizons, respectively, to 1,140, 1,100 and 1,050, said the leading investment bank through the Korean Economics Flash report released on Friday. “We recognize that our abo

Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd., India’s biggest SUV maker, will reveal the first jointly developed platform with Ssangyong Motor Co. by 2015, seeking to integrate its South Korean unit and boost margins from a five-year low. Mahindra will spend 300 billion won ($253 million) to develop the platform with the automaker it acquired last year, Pawan Goenka, president of Mahindra’s automotive division, said. The two companies have also begun working on a new engine, he said.New products catering to emergin

Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz held onto the U.S. luxury-vehicle sales lead for the year over Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s BMW brand, as Mercedes deliveries in May jumped 19 percent. Toyota Motor Corp.’s Lexus brand, rebounding from inventory shortages after last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan, soared 74 percent to 21,463. U.S. sales of Mercedes vehicles rose to 22,515 last month while BMW deliveries increased 7.3 percent to 22,168, according to statements yesterday from the companies. Lexu

Smartphone apps are very useful but users often have to pay for them with their privacy.The German consumer protection group Stiftung Warentest looked at 63 applications and graded 28 of them as "critical" in regards to data protection. Another nine were determined to be "very critical" -including widely-popular apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Foodspotting and iTranslate.The applications take per

More than 1 million people have so far flocked to the World Expo in South Korea's southern coastal city of Yeosu, organizers said Sunday.The Yeosu Expo has attracted 1.03 million people as of Saturday since the 93-day fair opened on May 12, the organizers said.If the current trend continues, the visitor turnout is expected to reach about 5 million, only about half of what South Korea had hoped to