South Korean cosmetics-to-health care conglomerate Aekyung Group said Thursday it has decided to merge its three chemical businesses into one entity tentatively named Aekyung Chemical. The merger of Aekyung Petrochemical, AK ChemTech and the current Aekyung Chemical is subject to approval by the respective company’s board and shareholders and a review by authorities. The new entity, expected to launch by November, would have 1.7 trillion won ($1.4 billion) in combined revenue this ye

More than 6 out of 10 South Korean parents are willing to have their children vaccinated, a local survey has found. A research team at Busan National University Hospital published the findings Thursday after it had surveyed 343 individuals across the country between May 25 and June 3. A total of 226 of those polled were parents with children under 18, while the rest were children and adolescents between the ages of 10-18. The survey was conducted when the inoculation age limit was 16, the r

South Korea will drastically increase its strategic stockpiles of nickel, cobalt and other critical metals, in a bid to ensure a stable supply of raw materials vital to key industries including electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy, the government said Thursday. National stockpiles of 35 rare metals -- designated by the government -- will increase to cover 100 days from the current 57 days, it said. New facilities will be built while some existing ones will be expanded and the stat

South Korea’s largest game developer Nexon will break the conventional boundaries of games and develop 10 “super” intellectual properties, or IPs, to appeal to a global audience, its chief executive said Thursday. During an online media showcase, Lee Jung-hun stressed that the firm will only regress should it stick to the gaming business, as increasingly more new forms of entertainment are replacing games and carving out people’s time. “The pandemic totally ch

Oriental Brewery said on Thursday that it has begun building solar power generation facilities at its beer production bases, a move that could offset over 5,600 tons of carbon footprint each year. Under the beer manufacturer’s decision to join the Renewable Energy 100 initiative, which is designed to encourage the use of solar power, it will become the first corporation to build its own infrastructure to generate renewable energy for self-consumption, the company said. The solar energy g

KT&G Corp., South Korea's dominant tobacco firm, said Thursday its earnings sank nearly 16 percent in the second quarter of the year despite a slight rise in sales. KT&G said in a regulatory filing its consolidated net income came to 246.4 billion won ($215.3 million) in the April-June period, down 15.9 percent from a year earlier. Operating profit fell 16.2 percent on-year to 330.1 billion won, while sales increased 2.1 percent to 1.35 trillion won. KT&G said its second-quarter n

South Korea's ICT ministry said Thursday it will expand support to small businesses to help them ward off ransomware threats after it raised the country's cyberthreat warning level a day earlier. Cyberattacks using ransomware, a type of malware that holds a target's data hostage by locking up systems until a ransom is paid, have been on the rise in South Korea, with 78 such attacks reported to the country's internet security agency in the first half of the year, compared with 39 in 2019 and 127

Samsung Electronics Co. saw its smartphone market share in India decline in the second quarter of the year, a report showed Thursday, as the tech giant tries to fend off challenges from Chinese players. Samsung represented 17.7 percent of the smartphone shipments in India in the April-June period, down from 25.7 percent a year earlier, according to market researcher Counterpoint Research. The figure was also down from a 20 percent share in the first quarter of the year. The South Korean firm r

South Korea's industry ministry said Thursday it will work to maintain a stable supply of reinforcement steel products used for construction in the second half of 2021, although the recovery of the virus-hit economy may continue to drive up their market prices. The local supply of rebar products is expected to reach 5.6 million tons in the July-December period, up 11 percent from a year earlier, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The amount will surpass the anticipated de

Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said Thursday the government will discuss with local banks whether to further roll over the debt and interest payments of small merchants hit hard by the pandemic. Since April last year, the government has encouraged local banks to extend loan maturity and hold off interest payments for micro business owners to help them cope with the fallout of the pandemic. The measures, which have been extended by six months twice, are set to expire at end-September. "The g

　Korea’s exports of biopharmaceutical products more than doubled in 2020 from a year earlier on the back of growing demand for pharmaceutical products amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a report showed. 　Outbound shipments of high-end biopharmaceutical products came to $5.1 billion in 2020, compared to around $2.1 billion tallied the previous year, according to the Korea International Trade Association. 　Asia’s fourth-largest economy stood in seventh place in terms of exports in the s

The number of smartphone users on 5G mobile networks topped 16 million as of June, data showed Thursday, as subscriptions to the latest generation networks continued to grow despite a lack of new flagship 5G phones. The total number of 5G users reached 16.47 million in June, accounting for around 23 percent of the total 71.63 million mobile subscriptions in the country, according to the data from the Ministry of Science and ICT. The latest data marks an increase from 15.84 million in May. Sout

Turbulent market following China’s move to strengthen regulation on games highlights risks facing Korean game developers and investors

The number of pubs and karaoke parlors has plummeted due to lost profitability from COVID-19 and tough social distancing rules, data from the National Tax Service showed Wednesday. The number of stores registered as pubs across the country stood at 27,840 as of the end of May, according to the tax authority’s survey on 100 key sectors of the self-employed segment. The figure dropped 3,636 or 11.6 percent from last year. The number of stores registered as semi-pubs -- whic

South Korean pharmaceutical giant Celltrion announced Wednesday that the company will develop a messenger RNA vaccine that can protect against COVID-19 variants, under a partnership with US-based biotech firm TriLink BioTechnologies. TriLink is a San Diego-based contract development and manufacturing organization for synthesis of nucleic acids and mRNA capping analogs. “Under the partnership with TriLink, (Celltrion) will develop a mRNA vaccine platform, through which the company could