South Korea's government is moving to create a special fund to support the New Deal initiative and help funnel investment into cutting-edge 5G technology, autonomous cars and eco-friendly sectors, the country's top economic policymaker said Thursday. In a message posted on his Facebook account, Finance Minister Hong Nam-ki said there is a need to divert large amounts of liquidity in the market from going into real estate and gold buying to more productive activities. The senior official said

LG adamant to continue its loss-incurring smartphone business, urges investors to look at long-term prospects

Korean Air has signed a supply deal for hybrid drones for the military, with plans to send the first batch of six units sometime in late October, the company said Thursday. As part of the deal, which is designed for the military to adopt the products of creative and new technologies developed in the private sector, the airline’s drones will be deployed to guard Korea’s coasts. The drones, whose development began in 2016, are equipped with hybrid engines powered by an internal combu

Tension surged in the aviation industry Thursday, with HDC Hyundai Development Co. and Asiana Airlines trading barbs over who is to blame for the lagging acquisition process. HDC on Thursday repeated its call for Asiana to agree to a new round of due diligence in August to finalize its acquisition process. In a statement, the building company said that its call for another round of due diligence last week is being ignored, and claimed that Kumho Industrial and the airline appear poised to term

Booyoung Group said Thursday that it was entering the housing market in Cambodia for the first time and developing Borey Booyoung Sensok in Phnom Penh, the nation’s capital. According to the group, its local headquarters there, Booyoung Khmer Co., is developing the residential area in the capital’s Sensok district for 716 households. The company said it opened its sales office Wednesday and that construction is expected to finish in December 2021. Borey Booyoung Sensok will hav

Retail sales edged up 3.7 percent in the first half of this year compared to the same period last year, with the growth towed by e-commerce companies, government data revealed Thursday. According to the Ministry of Trade Industry and Energy, total sales in the retail industry recorded 66.79 trillion won ($55.9 billion) on-year, up 3.7 percent. The growth rate appears to have slowed compared to previous years, as sales increased by 7.5 percent in 2018 and 5.6 percent in 2019. For the report,

SK Innovation said Thursday it has partnered with professor John B. Goodenough, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year, to develop a next-generation battery. The South Korean battery maker and the 98-year-old professor at the University of Texas at Austin will co-develop all-solid lithium-metal batteries, which are potentially more powerful and safer than current lithium-ion batteries. “I hope to open a new era of a next-generation battery with SK Innovation,” t

Limits owner family investment to curb excessive control

South Korea’s top internet firm Naver announced Thursday that its sales in the second quarter reached an all-time high of 1.9 trillion won ($1.6 billion), up 16.7 percent on-year. The company’s operating profit increased by 79.7 percent to 230 billion won, while net profit increased twofold logging 90 billion won. Naver said online shopping transactions helped revenue to grow by 8.6 percent to 772.2 billion won. The number of small vendors on Naver Smart Store marked a monthly

Celltrion’s COVID-19 antibody therapy candidate CT-P59 was given the approval to carry out clinical phase 1 trial in the UK, the company said Thursday. A clinical phase 1 trial is conducted on a small group of relatively healthy people, to test the drug candidate’s preliminary indications in human body, including its effectiveness, toxicity and any possible side effects. Celltrion said it is now recruiting eligible people for the trial. After this trial will follow Clinical pha

South Korea’s LabGenomics, which focuses on molecular diagnostics, said Thursday it has bagged a deal to supply advanced COVID-19 test kits to Siemens Healthineers in India. According to the company, it has signed a 5.8 billion won ($4.8 million) contract with the Indian medical technology firm to supply real-time polymerase chain reaction test kits for COVID-19 that can detect SARS CoV-2 virus infection in 35 minutes. This deal is worth 17.5 percent of LabGenomics’ yearly revenue

Two out of three workers aged between 55 and 79 in South Korea said they wish to continue working, according to a survey conducted by Statistics Korea earlier this week. The survey as of May this year showed that the respondents wished to work until 73 on average, although the job market for the age group has deteriorated since the 2008 financial crisis. Of the respondents, 47.1 percent received pension in the past year. Among the 14,271,000 people in the age group, 55.3 percent had jobs. It

Tech giant’s operating profit rises 23.5% in Q2, explains plan for DDR5

The World Trade Organization’s Dispute Settlement Body has decided to set up a panel to look into South Korea’s complaint over Japan’s trade restrictions, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Wednesday. The DSB makes decisions on trade disputes between governments that are adjudicated by the WTO. Panels are limited to making recommendations. Members of the multilateral trade agency have agreed to set up a panel following South Korea’s request last month.