Park Se-il, former lawmaker of the ruling Grand National Party and president of non-profit think tank Hansun Foundation, initiated a new political party aiming to include both conservatives and moderate liberals.The preparatory committee for the party, provisionally named People’s Thoughts, was launched Wednesday in Yeouido and pledged to register the party next month, officials said.The list of founding members included prominent figures such as former parliamentary secretary-general Park Kye-d

Leadership claims the term has negative connotations for young votersThe ruling Grand National Party, already struggling with vote-buying allegations, is facing internal feuding over whether to eliminate the term “conservatism” from the party platform.Though the party’s emergency leadership council largely agreed the term delivered a negative image to voters, the proposal to remove it triggered backlash from most GNP lawmakers who regard it as a key right-wing value.The council’s subcommittee o

Fair Trade Commission Chairman Kim Dong-soo vowed on Tuesday to streamline the complicated distribution systems of consumer products this year, with beef the first target. The state-run antitrust regulator said it plans to reveal next week the result of its investigation into the whole distribution process of beef cattle and the selling prices at major retailers and restaurants.The nation’s cattle farms have been hit hard by the fall in beef cattle prices due to an oversupply of Korean-bred cows

Korean companies suffered a series of credit downgrades last year, while three global rating agencies maintained their credit outlook for the nation at stable, the Korea Center for International Finance found Wednesday. According to a KCIF report, the world’s top three credit ratings agencies Fitch, Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s lowered the credit ratings of Korean companies 10 times last year. The companies included POSCO, Shinsegae, LG Electronics, Woori Investment & Securities, Citibank Korea

Nine ancient sites for private Confucian academies in South Korea have been included in a temporary list of potential UNESCO World Heritage locations on Tuesday, the government said.The nine included Dosan Seowon and Byeongsan Seowon, private Korean Confucian academies offering instruction in the classics and honoring prominent scholars with regular memorial rites during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910). The two academies are located in Andong, 268 kilometers southeast of Seoul.Dosan Seowon was es

Coupang, the country’s fastest-growing social commerce firm, is focusing on drafting customer satisfaction measures this year, with plans to have them take up 70 percent of its new services, said its chief executive.As an initial step, the company plans on opening a new call center and a self-owned logistics center by this month, Kim Bom-suk recently told The Korea Herald.“While we put an emphasis on completing our customer satisfaction scheme in 2012, we plan to unveil the measures step-by-step

A top U.S. Chamber of Commerce official said the Korea-U.S. free trade agreement, which is set to take effect soon, will further enhance economic relations between the two allies. “In this Korea-U.S. FTA, it’s a gold standard agreement, we already have a strong economic relationship, we got a great security relationship, a strong political friendship, but it takes the economic relationship to the next level,” said Tami Overby, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is projected that