South Korea’s top automotive group Hyundai Motor Group is expected to post bigger earnings this year than Samsung Group, the country’s biggest family-controlled conglomerate, data showed Thursday.The combined earnings of Hyundai Motor Group’s eight listed affiliates are projected to reach 18.05 trillion won ($15.56 billion) this year, compared with 17.75 trillion won of 12 Samsung Group affiliates, according to the data by financial data provider FnGuide.It will mark the first time that the auto

Korean Air, Hyundai Heavy, Hanwha, Samsung Techwin eyeing aircraft makerThe planned privatization of Korea Aerospace Industries has hit a snag with opposition from the labor union which wants the company to be a public corporation.The labor union of the state-funded aircraft maker has decided to obstruct a visit by the president of Korea Finance Corporation, KAI’s largest shareholder, scheduled for next week. The KoFC got KAI listed last June, making it possible to sell off the major shareholder

SMBA set to spend W1tr to help youth  start new businessesThe Ministry of Knowledge Economy said it plans to create 30,000 new jobs for young people next year by hiring more for research and development, and kick-start a project to foster 3,000 small and medium-sized companies that hire 1.2 million people by 2015.The ministry will also spend 1.7 trillion won next year alone to stabilize the power supply and have the Korea Electric Power Corporation replace obsolete equipment, according to an ann

South Korean stocks closed 2.08 percent lower on Thursday as foreign investors dumped local stocks on nagging concerns about Europe’s debt crisis, analysts said. The local currency fell against the U.S. dollar for the sixth straight session.The benchmark KOSPI trimmed 38.64 points to 1,819.11. Trading volume was moderate at 402.3 million shares worth 5.31 trillion won ($4.57 billion), with losers outpacing gainers 658 to 178.“Contagion fears about Europe’s debt crisis gripped investor sentiment.

South Koreans’ capacity to repay debt worsened to the lowest level in more than two years in the third quarter as falling share prices cut the value of their assets amid growing debt, the central bank said Thursday.The ratio of financial assets held by households and nonprofit organizations to debt, a gauge of their capacity to redeem debt, came in at 2.07 as of the end of the third quarter, down from 2.15 in the second quarter, according to the Bank of Korea.The third-quarter data marked the lo

Korea’s non-bank financial firms rapidly increased their share in the household loan market, seeing their combined total reach nearly 300 trillion won ($259 billion) and even outpacing banks, data showed on Thursday. The non-bank financial companies refer to savings banks, credit card operators, and insurance firms, and their household loan expansion in recent months is viewed by authorities as an additional risk factor to the country’s broader household debt situation. The size of non-bank fina

SYDNEY (AFP) -- Bill Gates on Thursday ruled out ever returning to the helm of Microsoft while dismissing criticism by late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who he called “brilliant.”Gates, in Sydney for a family holiday, said recent rumors that he was considering a full-time comeback to the U.S. software giant he founded, but stepped back from in 2006, were untrue.In an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald, he said he was busy working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation ”and that will be what

TOKYO (AP) ― A key central bank survey showed Thursday that confidence at major Japanese manufacturers fell over the last quarter, as the export-reliant country battled a strong yen and an increasingly precarious global economy.In the Bank of Japan’s “tankan” survey of business sentiment, the main index for big manufacturers fell to minus 4, in the first deterioration in two quarters. Three months ago, it stood at 2.The figure represents the percentage of companies saying business conditions are

President Lee Myung-bak is visiting Kyoto, Japan, on Saturday and Sunday for shuttle diplomacy with Prime Minister Yoshiko Noda. Glaringly missing from the officially sanctioned summit agenda, however, is an issue concerning Korean women forced into sex slavery during World War II. The summit will have to deal extensively with the case, be it on the official agenda or not.True, presidential aides say that Lee, very much concerned about the issue, may take it up any time he meets Noda. But a curs