US President Joe Biden will meet Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun on Sunday in Seoul to thank him for investment in the state of Georgia, Washington’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Thursday. The US president is scheduled to arrive in Seoul later on Friday for his three-day visit for summit talks with President Yoon Suk-yeol. His planned meeting with the Hyundai Motor chief comes amid reports that the South Korean auto giant will announce a $7 billion investment

A subsidiary of Netflix will invest $100 million in South Korea over the next six years to build special visual effects facilities in a move that will help turn the country into an Asian hub for high-tech content creation, Seoul's industry ministry said Friday. Scanline VFX will carry out the investment plan by 2027, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. An event to officially announce the plan took place in central Seoul, with Stephan Trojansky, the head of the global vi

　South Korea’s imports of home furnishing products hit an all-time high last year on the back of demand by consumers staying home amid the COVID-19 pandemic, data showed. 　The imports of eight kinds of home furnishing goods, including sofas and lamps, came to $3.5 billion last year, up 15.6 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Korea Customs Service. 　It rose 26.1 percent from the pre-pandemic year of 2019. 　By country, inbound shipments from China were the largest wi

An explosion at an S-Oil refinery in Ulsan, some 400 kilometers southeast of Seoul, left one person dead and nine others injured, firefighters said Friday.  Firefighters were notified of an explosion at the S-Oil refinery at 8:52 p.m. on Thursday. The injured workers were transported to a hospital nearby. While the exact cause has yet to be determined, fire authorities said the accident occurred inside S-Oil’s refinery at Onsan industrial park while crude oil was being processe

Hyundai Glovis, a supply chain management arm under Hyundai Motor Group, said Thursday that it has launched an overseas corporation in Bangkok, as part of its business expansion strategy in the Southeast Asian market. Hyundai Glovis Logistics Thailand, a joint venture that has been formed with local auto parts manufacturers and logistics firms, will be responsible for creating synergy with its existing logistics points in Vietnam and Indonesia, the company said in a statement.  According

To honor the United Nation’s World Bee Day, Hanwha Group said Thursday that it has created the country’s first solar beehive which has been designed with a photovoltaic low-carbon structure that uses electricity generated through solar panel. Hanwha Group said it has installed the solar beehive at the Korea National University of Agriculture and Fisheries (KNUAF) as a part of its pilot program. At this beehive, about 40,000 bees will help pollinate the fruit trees on campus and vege

INJE, Gangwon Province - Toyota’s iconic motorsports car Gazoo Racing 86 is back, 10 years after its second-generation model was launched in South Korea. And while other models are sold on green credentials, the carmaker has made a play for petrolheads with the third generation of the car, increasing the size of the engine by 20 percent to 2.4 liters, and offering a maximum torque of 25.5 kilogram-meters. Design-wise, the GR86 is unremarkable, looking like a typical sports car that can b

Zigbang, a South Korean proptech startup, said Thursday it will launch a global metaverse office platform that allows closer virtual interaction among staffers working for companies in the world. Soma is named after the ‘South of Market’ neighborhood in San Francisco, the home ground of Twitter and Airbnb. Zigbang has high hopes to build a business complex in the metaverse for innovative global startups, according to a company official. The new platform is an upgraded version of M

Technology visionary Don Tapscott says S. Korea’s new President Yoon Suk-yeol should have a national blockchain strategy; expresses concerns over Meta’s metaverse monopoly, get-rich-quick fantasy surrounding crypto

South Korean satellite communication service provider eyes partnership to jointly build low-earth orbit satellite constellation

Digital innovation in South Korean industries faces a major hurdle from the country‘s older generation weary of technological changes having unexpected side effects, said professor of mechanical engineering at Sungkyunkwan University Choi Jae-boong on Wednesday. “We as a society need to be more tolerant of people who may create side effects while leading the digital civilization,“ Choi said at the Global Business Forum hosted by The Korea Herald in Seoul on Wednesday.　 &ldqu

Oriental Brewery began a new television advertisement campaign to encourage get-togethers after two years of social distancing. The commercial “Let’s meet now" shows words of greetings and ends with friends and family toasting and having a good time. Major OB brands such as Cass, OB Lager, Hanmac and FiLGood are shown in the ad as something that connects people. OB beer accounted for more than 50 percent of the beer bought from convenience stores and supermarkets in the first

SsangYong Motor Co. said Wednesday it has signed a conditional investment deal with a local consortium ahead of the auction later this month to find a new investor for the carmaker.  The Seoul Bankruptcy Court recently selected the consortium led by chemical-to-steel firm KG Group as the preliminary bidder for SsangYong Motor.   The new auction comes two months after local electric bus maker Edison Motors Co. failed to make a full payment of 304.8 billion won ($249 million) fo

US President Joe Biden is expected to start his three-day state visit this week with a tour of Samsung Electronics’ chip complex, according to industry sources on Wednesday. Biden will arrive in Seoul on Friday for summit talks with President Yoon Suk-yeol on Saturday. Upon his arrival at the Osan Air Base, he is reportedly heading directly to Samsung’s chip complex in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul. Seoul’s presidential office also confirm

Amid the rise of the platform era where tech giants have a strong foothold based on their abundant resources, small companies must build a solid brand identity through digital branding and target a specific customer base, experts said Wednesday. “Big tech corporations such as Amazon wield enormous power over industries -- especially e-commerce, since they provide a simple but powerful platform with a wide range of purchase choices,” said Kim Byung-gyu, a business professor at Yonse