The state-run Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency is holding a “hybrid” exhibition in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City in an effort to help small- and mid-sized Korean firms, the agency said Friday. KOTRA opened a Korean booth at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center, as part of the three-day specialized exhibition that runs from Thursday to Saturday. The event was organized by the city’s Department of Industry and Trade to help businesses boost production, develop

Mercedes-Benz Korea is sponsoring the year-end League of Legends event, in an extended move to promote the prestige automobile brand to the young generation, the company said Friday in a release. The 2020 League of Legends All-Star Event kicked off Friday to run until Sunday, in which the German automaker is to take part as the sole official partner. In September this year, Mercedes-Benz Korea became the first luxury car brand to be named the official partner of LOL publisher Riot Games and s

Unionized workers at GM Korea Co. agreed Friday to accept the company's revised wage proposals amid the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic. GM Korea workers voted in favor of the second tentative wage and collective agreement deal in a two-day vote that ended on Friday. The workers rejected the first tentative deal earlier this month. In the second deal, GM Korea agreed to drop a damage suit filed against the union for strike-driven output losses and provide 4 million won ($3,600) per worker in perfo

SK Innovation’s aggressive battery investments have trickle-down effects for local businesses in Korea and the US, the Korean firm claimed Friday, as it sought to burnish its contributions to the economy ahead of a lawsuit ruling in the US. The energy firm is currently building two electric battery plants in the US state of Georgia. The first of those, with capacity of 9.8 GWh of production a year, is expected to be finished and start test runs next year. It is due to enter full-fledged o

Korean Air CEO Cho Won-tae has been awarded with a gold medal of honor medal by the French government for his contributions to enhancing relations between Korea and France. During a ceremony in Seoul on Thursday, Franck Rieste, the visiting minister-delegate for Foreign Trade and Economic Attractiveness of France, bestowed the honor on the Korean businessman for continuing direct flights between the two countries despite a sharp decrease in passengers. The medal is given to those who have cont

Lemonex, a South Korean biotherapeutics and biotech company, was acknowledged with an Industry and Energy Ministerial prize for technology innovation at the Innovation Winner 2020 awards. The Innovation Winner 2020 was hosted by Herald Corp. in collaboration with monthly magazine PowerKorea on Thursday. Lemonex won for its original drug delivery technology called DegradaBALL. “DegradaBALL enables effective delivery of various new drug candidates into cultured cells or lesions by loading

Hyundai Motor Co. said Friday it seeks to raise its stake in its plant in Turkey by acquiring a 27 percent stake held by Kibar Holding in preparation for the post-coronavirus recovery. Early this month, Hyundai Motor submitted documents to the Turkish authorities to buy most of Kibar's stake in its local factory, a company spokesman said over the phone. The South Korean carmaker currently holds a 70 percent stake in the 230,000-unit-a-year plant in the northwestern city of Izmit, and Kibar ow

South Korean biopharmaceutical giant Celltrion Inc. said Friday it has signed an agreement worth 240 billion won ($220 million) to supply a diagnostic kit for the novel coronavirus in the United States. Under the agreement, Celltrion's rapid antibody diagnostic test (RDT) kit for the new coronavirus, named DiaTrust, will be distributed by Prime Healthcare Distributors. The kit was co-developed by the South Korean in-vitro diagnostic company Humasis. The new antibody detection test is most sui

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. said Friday it has suspended its Okpo shipyard for three days due to COVID-19 infections among its workers. Three workers have tested positive for the coronavirus, the company said. "The work suspension will have a limited impact on the construction of ships as it applies for just the one business day of Friday and the other two days are the weekend," Yoon Yohan, a company spokesman, told Yonhap News Agency. The shipyard is located

Samsung Electronics Co. on Friday introduced new models of its Galaxy Book laptop series as the South Korean tech aims to boost personal computer (PC) sales amid the stay-at-home trend driven by the pandemic. Samsung said the Galaxy Book Flex2, Galaxy Book Flex2 5G and Galaxy Book Ion2 will be launched on Jan. 1, 2021. Preorders for the latest laptops, all powered by Intel Corp.'s 11th generation processor, will be available from Monday to Dec. 31 in South Korea. The Galaxy Book Flex2 is a 2

South Korea's bourse operator on Thursday decided to grant the scandal-ridden drugmaker Kolon TissueGene Inc. a one-year period to improve its management. In a meeting to decide whether to delist the drugmaker, the KOSDAQ market committee under the Korea Exchange (KRX) decided to give the company, an affiliate of Kolon Life Science, a one-year grace period to enhance its management. Kolon TissueGene was listed on the secondary KOSDAQ market in 2017. The trading of Kolon TissueGene has been sus

Telecommunications firm LG U+ introduced a 5G network-based autonomous parking solution, during a closed demonstration held in Seoul, Thursday. 　 In an online video demonstration, the carrier tested the self-driving vehicle, which traveled about five minutes on roads and managed to park itself in a public parking lot. 　 The test car, a Genesis GV80 SUV equipped with lidar and radar sensors, started off on a road 800 meters from the parking lot, followed traffic signals on the way and parked i

SK Bioscience announced Thursday that the typhoid conjugate vaccine it is developing jointly with the International Vaccine Institute has garnered positive results from phase 3 clinical trials. The phase 3 clinical trials of vaccine material NBP618 were conducted on 1,350 people aged between 6 months and 45 years old. The company said the test subject group has shown immune responses as effective as existing typhoid vaccines. There was no side effect found, the company added. SK Bioscience n

A US trade court ruled Wednesday in favor of Medytox in its 5-year-old legal battle with Daewoong Pharmaceutical over botulinum toxin products. In its final decision, the US International Trade Commission slapped Daewoong with a 21-month ban on the sale of its botulinum toxin product, Nabota, in the US. Daewoong’s US partner, Evolus, issued an investors’ notice saying the company “plans to fund a bond to allow for the continued sales and marketing of Jeuveau in the United S

What determines a fair portion of success of new smartphones is the brain of the devices: the mobile application processor. With the news of an upcoming January launch of the Samsung Galaxy S21 series, attention is moving to what will be the core AP of the upcoming gadgets. According to various industry sources on Thursday, Samsung is highly likely to adopt the latest edition of its in-house chipset, supposedly called Exynos 2100, for the highest-end model of the Galaxy S21 series. Throu