South Korea is considering lowering taxes on oil consumption to help ease financial burdens on low- and mid-income people from sky-high oil prices, the nation's finance minister hinted Monday."The government does not deny the need for lowering oil taxes,"Finance Minister Yoon Jeung-hyun told lawmakers. "It is taking a close look at when and how much the government should push for (tax reduction)."

The largest association of overseas-based Korean business leaders put forward an ambitious vision Monday to offer overseas internship positions for 10,000 young Korean adults as it celebrated its 30th anniversary with a pledge to expand the "business territory" of their homeland.   The World Federation of Overseas Korean Traders Association, or World-OKTA, also vowed to take advantage of its deep-

South Korea is poised to lend greater support for the overseas expansion of 10 local franchise chains, including well-known names such as Mr. Pizza and Cafe Bene to help bolster service-related exports, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said Monday. “Due to their standardized quality of products, service and stores, franchises are easy to globalize. Also, they are highly prospective exports driver

South Korea’s telecom titan KT Corp. said Monday that it has started offering cloud services in three cities in the United States and Germany, aiming to attract game developers and other content providers. The telecom company rolled out remote storage services that allow streaming and downloading data from online servers in New York, Los Angeles and Frankfurt, it said in a statement. The company a

Flat-panel maker LG Display incurred a second-straight quarter operating loss during the January-March period on falling panel prices triggered by dormant demand, the company said in a regulatory filing Monday. Operating deficit for the first quarter of this year stood at 239.2 billion won ($219.2 million).The figure was narrowed from 387 billion won in the fourth quarter of 2010, but industry wat

South Korea will not raise its present foot-and-mouth disease alert level despite a fresh outbreak in the southeastern part of the country over the weekend, a government official said Monday.Deputy Farm Minister Lee Sang-kil said animals at the small farm in Yeongcheon, 344 kilometers from Seoul, were affected by the “type O” FMD virus that had devastated South Korea since November.The farm owner

Renault Samsung Motors Co. and the Road Traffic Authority formed a partnership to collaborate on promoting road safety for children on Monday.Under the agreement, the carmaker and the state-run organization will collaborate in educating children about traffic safety, and establish a system for cooperation and mutual support in reducing traffic accidents involving children, Renault Samsung said.The

Hyundai Motor Co. is hiring interns for the summer.The internship is open to university students who are scheduled to graduate in February 2012.The company is receiving applications through its public relations homepage at pr.hyundai.com from Tuesday until May 2. Successful applicants will work for five weeks at the company’s local and overseas operations during the summer vacation. The company wi

Hyundai Heavy Industries, the world’s largest shipyard, announced Monday that it won contracts for five vessels, worth 900 billion won ($826 million), pushing up the value of contracts won, including those awarded to its subsidiary Hyundai Samho Heavy Industries Co., this year to $9.2 billion.The figure accumulated so far this year is about 46 percent of the $19.8 billion target the company has se

Samsung Electronics Co. said Monday that it will roll out new refrigerators in the U.S. market this month with a flat screen that displays services from Twitter Inc., Google Inc. and the latest news from The Associated Press. The company will release two new side-by-side fridges with an 8-inch touchscreen that displays short-message updates from Twitter and Google as well as news and weather infor