HONG KONG -- Lotte Mart Co., South Korea‘s third-largest discount chain store, plans to open a new store in a city in north-central China, as part of an effort to boost its presence in the country’s fast-growing retail sector, regional government and business sources said Wednesday. Lotte Mart has agreed with the Henan provincial government to invest 500 million yuan ($78.6 million) to build a discount store in Zhegzhou, the capital city of Henan, official sources said. The announcement comes as

South Korea’s retail market growth is expected to slow down next year due mainly to the sluggish economy, which could cause a decline in real income stemming from increasing inflationary pressure, an industry report showed on Wednesday.According to the report by the Shinsegae Retail Research Institute, South Korea’s retail market will grow 6.9 percent on-year to 232 trillion won ($20.2 billion) in 2012, compared with this year’s growth estimate of 8.2 percent and an estimate of 217 trillion won

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea‘s largest carmaker, said Wednesday that it signed a three-year contract to support the U.S. Grammy Awards.Under the contract, Hyundai will be the exclusive vehicle partner for the prestigious award sponsored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences for outstanding achievement in the music industry. The carmaker said that its vehicles will be used to ferry celebrities to the awards ceremony slated for February 2012.It will also play a role in the Gramm

Daewoo Engineering & Construction Co., South Korea’s fourth-largest builder, said Wednesday it has clinched a $330 million order to build a residential complex in western Saudi Arabia.Under the deal with the Kele Saudi Arabia Ltd., Daewoo Engineering will construct 360 residence units for 7,200 households in a new town at the coastal city of Jeddah.The construction is scheduled to be completed by February 2016, the builder said. The Saudi government is pushing for a $67 billion housing project t

The amount of cargo processed at South Korea’s seaports surged 9.6 percent last month from a year earlier on growing trade and cargo passing through the country, the government said Wednesday.The volume of cargo handled at the country’s seaports came to 112.89 million tons, according to the Ministry of Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs.The figure also marks a large gain from the 101 million tons processed in September.“The amount of import-export cargo is growing despite worsening global econ

South Korea is one of the global leaders in the manufacturing sector, bolstered by its competitiveness in autos and semiconductors, a local think tank said Wednesday.The Institute for International Trade (IIT) said in its latest annual report that as of 2010, South Korea was the seventh largest exporting nation in the world.It also said that the country was the fifth largest manufacturer of automobiles and No. 2 in the world in terms of semiconductor sales.The institute under the Korea Internati

South Korea’s dependence on major advanced economies such as the U.S. and Europe has deepened over the past decade, making its economy more vulnerable to global financial crises originating with the economic powers, a report said Wednesday.According to the report compiled by the Korea Center for International Finance, South Korea and the U.S. had a correlation coefficient of 0.76 in terms of economic growth in the 2000-2010 period. The comparable figure was 0.51 in the 1980s and plunged to minus

The National Assembly’s passage of the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement bill on Tuesday left leaders of the Grand National Party and Democratic Party facing challenges in their leadership ahead of big elections next year.GNP chairman Rep. Hong Joon-pyo masterminded the party’s blitz FTA vote. Though the bill was expected to be put to vote on Thursday, he met with floor leader Rep. Hwang Woo-yea late on Monday and persuaded him that further discussions would be of no use, according to party offici

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi will come here next week for a four-day official visit at the invitation of President Lee Myung-bak, Cheong Wa Dae said Wednesday.The two leaders will hold summit talks next Monday to discuss a wide range of issues including development cooperation, trade, education, cultural exchanges and peninsular security, the presidential office said.The Ethiopian leader is to arrive here on Monday and leave on Thursday. Lee’s invitation was made when he traveled to Eth

The police have rejected the modified presidential decree on the investigative powers of the police and prosecutors disclosed Wednesday, saying that a full agreement was not reached.The Prime Minister’s Office announced the modified version on Wednesday, saying that this version is aimed at minimizing friction between prosecutors and the police.The presidential decree establishes areas where the police will be under public prosecutors’ command in investigating cases according to the revised Crim

Korean and U.S. delegates held a joint committee meeting in Seoul on Wednesday discussing the U.S. military’s governing protocols over its personnel here, amid public cries for reforms after crimes by U.S. soldiers. The Korea-U.S. Joint Committee, including USFK Deputy Commander Jeffrey Remington and Foreign Ministry officials, discussed the Status of Forces Agreement which governs some 28,000 troops stationed throughout the Korean Peninsula. The meeting’s top issue was the custody of U.S. milit

The South Korean government said it will establish a “unification fund” under the current inter-Korean cooperation fund to prepare for reunification with North Korea in the future.The Unification Ministry said the fund will be run separately from the inter-Korean cooperation fund so that it can be used for a stable integration of the two Korean regions and social security. The unification fund will be raised through government funds, private sources, money left over from the inter-Korean coopera

Spread of information through phones may not immediately lead to big change: expertsThe number of North Korean mobile phone users has jumped in recent years, with the figure projected to top the 1-million mark by year’s end, an unusual phenomenon in the tightly controlled state.In the last three months, there has been an increase of around 140,000 cellular phone registrations, according to a recent report by Egypt’s Orascom Telecom, the sole wireless carrier in the communist country.The figure,