South Korea’s SPC Group, which operates bakery franchise Paris Baguette, said it has bagged a Guinness World Records certification for its bestselling roll cake brand. Paris Baguette’s sales of Silky Roll Cake topped 12.49 million from January 2015 to December 2019 in five countries -- Korea, China, the US, Singapore and Vietnam. It is the largest number of roll cakes to be sold and hence got the honor, the company said. When converted to distance, it is 3,000 kilometers when con

GS Engineering and Construction said Thursday it is officially entering the precast concrete business by building a precast concrete factory in North Chungcheong Province. According to the company, it signed an investment agreement with the North Chungcheong provincial government and Eumseong County on Wednesday, to build the factory in the region. The factory will be built on a 150,000-square-meter plot of land inside the General Industrial Complex in Eumseong County, and it will be capabl

South Korea’s Daelim Industrial said Thursday it has applied for a patent for its new technology that drastically reduces sound between apartment floors. According to the construction company, it analyzed the impact patterns of the footsteps of adults and children to develop the new method of topping two layers of mortar and one layer of insulation material on top of the concrete slab, which is the basic frame of a building. Dubbed the Noise Free 3-layer System, the extra mortar and h

Amorepacific Group Chairman Suh Kyung-bae’s eldest daughter is getting engaged to the first son of Bokwang Investment Corp. Chairman Hong Seok-joon this weekend, according to industry sources Thursday. Suh Min-jeong and Hong Jeong-hwan, who started dating early this year after being introduced by an acquaintance, are set to hold an engagement ceremony at Shilla Hotel in Seoul at around 6 p.m. on Saturday. Both work at their fathers’ companies. Suh is the second-largest sharehold

Korean e-commerce giant Coupang said it is recruiting about 200 tech talents, starting from Wednesday. The positions include software developers, product owners, product designers and more, with over five years of experience in their respective fields, Coupang said. For those hired in this recruitment, Coupang said it will also offer a signing bonus, starting from 50 million won ($41,600) upon joining the company. Coupang has tech development offices in the Silicon Valley in California as

LabGenomics, a molecular diagnostics health care company, developed the world’s first 35-minute real-time polymerase chain reaction test kit for COVID-19. The company’s shares, listed on the tech-heavy Kosdaq, hit the daily growth ceiling of 30 percent on the day of the announcement Wednesday and continued to be upbeat in early morning trading Thursday, rising by 14.17 percent. Before, RT-PCR test kits for COVID-19 could yield results as fast as 2 1/2 hours. LabGenomics’ 35

South Korean firm vows stronger drive for innovation despite global pandemic disruptions

South Korean automaker Kia Motors has topped the J.D. Power Initial Quality Study in the US, securing the highest rank for six consecutive years as a mass market auto brand, the firm said Thursday. The J.D. Power IQS is a US study that began in 1987 and assesses vehicle product quality based on the problems experienced by owners during their first 90 days of ownership. Using the 223 criteria, a total of 189 vehicles from 31 brands -- 13 premium brands and 18 mass market brands -- have been eva

Future of logistics and supply chain industry depends on use of data, Oscar de Bok says

South Korea's move to offer an unlicensed 6 gigahertz (GHz) frequency band will lead to superfast Wi-Fi services across the country and the building of 5G network-based smart factories, the science ministry said Thursday. The spectrum, ranging from 5,925 MHz through 7,125 MHz, will open for indoor use in September, with the entire frequency to be made available by 2022, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT. South Korea, the first country to begin commercial 5G services in April 3 last

About half of married couples in South Korea earned two incomes in 2019, data from Statistics Korea showed. Among 12.305 million households led by married couples, 5.662 million were dual-income, while 6.644 million were single-income. The ratio of dual-income families had inched down by 0.3 percentage points to 46 percent from 2018. The agency said although there was a slight decrease, the overall ratio of dual-income couples has been high in recent years. Last year’s decline is attr

A pilot of Korean Air Lines Co. has been diagnosed with the new coronavirus, the company said Wednesday, adding to the woes of the national flag carrier. The pilot tested positive Tuesday for COVID-19 after showing symptoms of the virus during his vacation that began on June 18, a Korean Air spokeswoman said by phone. Three fellow cockpit crew members who worked with the pilot were tested for the coronavirus. Two of them tested negative, and the third person is waiting for the test result,

An increasing number of IT companies in South Korea are developing artificial intelligence-based software to counter abusive online comments. The AI-based profanity filters help them to improve user experience by hiding unpalatable comments on their platforms, according to industry sources. One of them is the nation’s top game company Nexon, which in 2017 created an in-house AI research and development team called Intelligence Labs. The team of around 200 engineers has developed its ow

2020 to be remembered as a turning point for Korean biopharma industry

South Korea‘s Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee on Wednesday officially announced her bid to become the next general director of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Yoo, 53, is the third South Korean to run for the top post of the Geneva-based trade body, currently facing challenges over confusions in global trade rules and shaky cooperation among the member countries. If elected, Yoo would be the first Korean to lead the organization. “South Korea can become a bridge, connecting deve