Incheon Airport on Thursday forecast its debt ratio to spike to nearly 70 percent this year due to a plunge in flight operations and travelers amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The airport operator said in a press conference that flight operations are likely to have dropped 19 percent from last year, and travelers by 70 percent on-year. The downturn has hurt revenue, as the airport’s sales stood at 490.5 billion won ($416 million), a 55 percent drop from last year. The airport sought to respo

Former presidential adviser says political talks at highest level essential to forge efforts on cross-border project

The 2021 IoT Korea Online Business Meeting held by National IT Industry Promotion Agency from Nov. 2-4 wrapped up with several agreements reached by participating firms. Nearly 370 business meetings were arranged over the three days at the Pangyo 2nd Techno Valley Corporate Support Hubs. Small and medium-sized IoT companies in Korea have been seeking routes into overseas markets and have been doing so at large global trade shows every year. However, due to the pandemic, online export confere

Business leaders who planned and built a metaverse platform have written a book on the subject of the metaverse -- a virtual world that incorporates augmented reality and avatars, among other things, in parallel to the physical world. Choi Jin-young, CEO of The Korea Herald; Ryu Seong-taek, CEO of Hyundai Futurenet, an affiliate of Hyundai Department Store; and Song Min-jae and Choo Sun-woo, CEOs of Meta Factory, co-authored “The Metaverse Management,” based on their discussions as

Chipmaker retains CEO Lee Seok-hee, names two presidents to oversee marketing, production

Human connection crucial for work efficiency, says behavioral scientist Jon Levy

Is Korea ready for the second wave of supply chain crisis?

More listed units of South Korea's major business groups have adopted electronic voting and other types of voting this year than a year earlier in a bid to promote small shareholders' rights, the country's antitrust regulator said Thursday. As of May, 78.8 percent of 274 listed affiliates of the country's 62 major conglomerates, or 216 firms, had introduced at least one out of cumulative, written or e-voting systems, the Fair Trade Commission said in a report on large business groups' governanc

Doosan Robotics Co. said Thursday it has produced an unmanned modular robot cafe in cooperation with Folletto Robotics, a local unmanned beverage manufacturing system maker. Doosan Robotics is a subsidiary wholly owned by Doosan Corp., a holding company of Doosan Group, South Korea's 15th largest conglomerate by asset. The unmanned modular robot cafe is a kind of collaborative robot, which refers to a robot that can work with a human. The unmanned modular robot cafe can be manufactured by put

Hyundai Rotem Co., a South Korean railway system and plant equipment maker, said Thursday it has received a 219 billion won ($186 million) order to supply tram cars to Canada. Under the deal, Hyundai Rotem will supply tram cars for the Valley Line West to be built between the downtown of Edmonton, Alberta, and the western part of the city by June 2027, the company said in a statement. The company didn't provide the volume of tram cars. Hyundai Rotem beat rivals such as Germany's Siemens AG,

Hyundai Motor Co. and its affiliate Kia Corp. said Thursday their combined sales in the United States fell 13 percent last month from a year earlier amid the global chip shortage. Hyundai and Kia sold a total of 89,663 vehicles in the world's most important automobile market in November from 103,068 units a year ago, according to the companies' sales data. Hyundai's US sales fell 20 percent to 44,345 units from 55,171 over the cited period, while Kia's declined 5.4 percent to 45,318 from 47,

Posco Chemical and General Motors will form a joint venture and build a factory in North America to locally produce key electric vehicle materials, the two companies announced Thursday. Once completed in 2024, the new facility will produce and supply cathodes to Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, which is building two EV factories in Ohio and Tennessee. Though size and location remain unclear, this is Posco Chemical’s first expansion to the US. Cathodes a

Kakao Corp. will acquire a majority stake of live commerce startup firm Grip Co., according to sources Wednesday. The South Korean tech giant plans to acquire a 48 percent stake of the company for 180 billon won ($152.5 million), sources familiar with the deal said. Established in 2018, the company currently operates its namesake live commerce mobile application, which allows users to sell products online. The number of sellers on Grip stood at some 12,000 as of April, and the volume of tr

  South Korean steelmaker Posco Group is pushing to establish a holding company to make a breakthrough in business expansion and eventually to boost its market valuation, industry sources said Wednesday. Posco, the country’s sixth-largest conglomerate in terms of assets, has been drawing a downward graph in stocks despite its record-high business result this year due to the booming steel industry during pandemic.  According to sources, Posco Group will table the issue of an es

German luxury carmaker’s eFuel is about saving combustion engine, its tradition in face of EV boom