The Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness will be a precious opportunity to build a new global partnership making development more effective in aid recipient countries, a South Korean government official said.Park En-na, director general of the development cooperation bureau at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, represents Korea in the group of sherpas who are to finalize the outcome document in the final meeting of the so-called HLF-4 on Thursday.“In the past, aid and development

A Buddhist monk has recently been at the center of political discourse, with his words eagerly listened to by politicians and journalists.Ven. Beopryun is known to have led entrepreneur-turned-professor Ahn Cheol-soo to make lectures around the country to give comfort and encouragement to young people anxious about their future.The program, called “Youth Concert,” ran for several months starting in May and drew a large audience. It helped build a broad support base for Ahn, who has been touted a

  Regrouping attempts more diversified than ever ahead of two key elections in 2012In a recent meeting with reporters, former presidential candidate Lee Hoi-chang was active in addressing a range of issues that have recently gripped political circles.Lee said Ahn Cheol-soo, an entrepreneur-turned-professor rising as a potential presidential runner, should show more of his hand, and that a Buddhist monk considered one of Ahn’s mentors should stop talking about politics and return to the sanctuary

STX Group chairman Kang Duk-soo vowed to focus on profits and stable growth to keep the conglomerate afloat amid a somber outlook for the global economy, company officials said Tuesday.Kang, who built the nation’s 12th-largest business group in terms of asset value through aggressive mergers and acquisitions of shipbuilding, shipping and heavy industries companies, announced last month that STX will not push for any large M&As after dropping its bid to buy Hynix Semiconductor. STX affiliates rec

LG Group chairman Koo Bon-moo is leading the drive to nurture future growth projects as he made his trip to LG Chem’s liquid-crystal display plant in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, on Tuesday.The visit was Koo’s seventh to the group’s part-supplying affiliates’ plants as the chairman is continuing with LG’s efforts to take the lead in the global market. He visited the battery plant for electric vehicles in February, the solar wafer factory in April and the film-patterned retarder 3-D film plant in May

Shareholders to cast crucial vote on replacing CEO on WednesdayThe management feud between Hi Mart, the nation’s largest electronics appliance retailer, and its major shareholder Eugene Corp. was escalating Tuesday, ahead of a shareholders’ meeting scheduled for Wednesday. Amid fierce resistance from 5,000 Hi Mart employees, shareholders plan to vote on a proposal to replace CEO Sun Jong-koo, the founder and second-largest shareholder of the company. An ad-hoc committee supporting Sun to stay sa

South Korea’s current account surplus rose to the highest level in one year in October as exports declined on-month at a slower pace than imports, the central bank said Tuesday.The current account surplus reached $4.23 billion October, up from a revised $2.83 billion the previous month, according to the Bank of Korea.The current account is the broadest measure of cross-border trade.The October reading marked the largest surplus since $5.49 billion tallied in October last year.The current account

Volunteering has been at the core of Korea Electric Power Corp.’s efforts to fulfill its social responsibility as the nation’s sole supplier of electricity.KEPCO launched its social volunteer corps in May 2004 under the slogan “Light to the World, Love to the Neighbors” for systematic and specialized volunteer services for the underprivileged. About 19,600 KEPCO employees in 272 volunteer groups across the nation take part in a variety of programs for social contribution.The focus of their lates

Daelim Industrial Co., Korea’s fifth-largest builder, said Tuesday it recently won a $2 billion contract to upgrade a crude refining plant in the Philippines.Under the deal with Petron Corp., the Southeast Asian country’s largest refiner, Daelim will be in charge of engineering, procurement and construction of the factory in Limay, 150 kilometers southwest of Manila, by early 2014.When completed, the facility will be able to churn out more profitable petrol products by converting heavy distillat

Top executives of U.S. companies make successive visits for cooperationNovember has been an especially busy month for the local IT industry with a number of IT gurus from the U.S. visiting Korea, intending to devise business plans for next year.The visits started with Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google Inc., who arrived for the second time in Seoul since 2007, followed by Qualcomm chairman Paul Jacobs and Microsoft International’s president Jean-Philippe Courtois later in the month.The government,

Apple Inc.’s iPad is the bane of computer-memory makers, worsening the industry’s losses as consumers choose the hand-held device that uses about 75 percent fewer of the chips than a typical laptop. Elpida Memory Inc., Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and other makers of dynamic random-access memory, the most common chip in computers, lost a combined $14 billion in the past three years, according to Bloomberg calculations. That comes after the $37 billion that researcher DRAMeXchange estimates they spen