Korean Air reached a tentative agreement with the city of Seoul to sell a plot of land in central Seoul, according to industry sources Thursday. The airline is expected to secure about 450 billion won to 550 billion won ($399 million to $488 million) in cash from the deal. Industry officials said Seoul and the flag carrier are close to finalizing contract terms for the property sale located in Songhyeon-dong, in the central district of Jongno, as early as next week. As part of its efforts to

Industry ministry chiefs exchange ideas on hydrogen trade policies and technologies

PM denies land minister’s involvement in the case

The US Transportation Department will brief President Joe Biden on how a recent court decision to impose a 10-year import ban on SK Innovation will impact his green transportation goals. During a hearing held Wednesday, freshman Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat from Georgia, asked Polly Trottenberg, nominee for deputy secretary of the transportation department, whether she would provide the president an analysis of the ruling’s expected effect on his green transportation goals.

The Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co. (KSOE) said Thursday it has inked a deal with the Korean Register of Shipping (KR), a South Korean ship quality assurance and risk management company, to jointly come up with safety design regulation for hydrogen-fueled ships. The safety design regulation to be created for the first time in the world will be submitted to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) by 2022, Korea Shipbuilding said. Ships are usually required to be built

Kyobo Life Insurance, one of South Korea's leading life insurers, said Thursday its earnings plunged nearly 30 percent in 2020 due to increased costs. Net profit came to 382.9 billion won ($340 million) last year, down 29.9 percent from a year earlier, Kyobo Life Insurance said in a filing to the Korea Life Insurance Association. Kyobo Life Insurance said its net income fell due to a temporary rise in costs to prevent insurance planners from leaving the company amid the coronavirus impact and

South Korea announced Thursday it plans to invest 300 billion won ($267 million) over the next three years to speed up the growth of the digital retail segment, which has recently enjoyed an unprecedented boom amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the plan, the country will not only pave the way for online retailers to tap deeper into the overseas markets but help them adopt state-of-the-art technologies, including drones, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. Around 4,000 logis

Lee Jae-yong, the imprisoned de facto leader of Samsung Group, is focusing on preparing for his next legal battle related to his succession, industry insiders said Thursday, accepting only visits from his legal advisers so far. Lee, the heir of South Korea's top conglomerate, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in prison by the Seoul High Court on Jan. 18 in a retrial of a bribery case involving former President Park Geun-hye and was put behind bars again. Separate from the bribery case, Lee is deali

Samsung Electronics Co. on Thursday announced it has signed a partnership with local artificial intelligence (AI) solutions provider Kakao Enterprise Corp. to boost its smart home business. Under the deal, Samsung's smart devices and home appliances will be compatible with the Kakao i AI platform from Kakao Enterprise, an affiliate of Kakao Corp. that runs South Korea's most-used mobile messenger, Kakao Talk. Consumers can now operate Samsung's products connected to its Internet of Things (IoT

Samsung Electronics Co. was the top vendor in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) smartphone market last year, a report showed Thursday, despite its market share declining. Samsung shipped 99.7 million smartphones in the EMEA market in 2020 for a 28.9 percent market share, according to industry researcher International Data Corp. (IDC). The figures were down from 2019 when the company shipped 118.5 million smartphones for a 32.9 percent market share. However, the South Korean tech giant

　South Korea’s chicken exports touched a new high in 2020 amid growing worldwide demand for ready-to-eat products and the popularity of Korean pop culture, a report showed. 　Overseas shipments of processed chicken came to $21 million last year, up 59.5 percent from a year earlier, according to the report from the Korea International Trade Association. 　KITA said the jump came as exports of packaged traditional chicken soup, or samgyetang, and chicken breast spiked due to the coronavi

Samsung Electronics Co. said on Thursday it achieved the industry's fastest download speed with an advanced telecommunications technology using both 5G and 4G LTE base stations. In a demonstration carried out in Suwon, south of Seoul, the company achieved 5.23 gigabits per second (Gbps) in data speeds, which is enough to download a 4-gigabyte full-HD movie in six seconds, to its Galaxy S20+ smartphone, using E-UTRAN New Radio Dual Connectivity (EN-DC) technology. EN-DC technology enables mobil

Samsung Electronics further upped its leadership in the global NAND flash market in the fourth quarter of 2020, a report showed Wednesday, despite revenue decline.  The South Korean tech giant, also the leader in the DRAM sector, had a 32.9 percent share of the global NAND flash market in terms of revenue in the October-December period, up 1.5 percentage points from a quarter earlier, according to market tracker TrendForce.  But Samsung's revenue from NAND flash products came to a

Hyundai Heavy Industries Holdings said Wednesday that it has signed a deal with Saudi Arabia's state-run oil firm Saudi Aramco to cooperate on a hydrogen project. Under the deal, Hyundai Oilbank, HHIH's refining unit, will import liquefied petroleum gas from Saudi Aramco to produce blue hydrogen, which is derived from fossil fuel resources such as natural gas, the holding company said. Carbon dioxide captured and stored during the production process will also be provided to Saudi Aramco for

Elder sister joins in, siding against youngest brother in management feud