GM Korea, the South Korean unit of General Motors, said Monday its June sales fell 21 percent from a year earlier due to weak domestic demand. GM Korea sold a total of 43,692 vehicles in June, down from 55,077 units tallied a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Exports declined 13 percent to 32,237 from 37,019 over the cited period. Domestic sales also plunged 37 percent to 11,455 units from 18,058 during the same period, it said. The sales slump was mainly affected by the sharp decli

Mortgage lending by six major retail banks grew to a seven-month high in June, as more people sought to receive mortgages before the government tightens lending regulations for home mortgages, data showed Monday. The value of home loans at the six banks, including Shinhan, Kookmin and Woori, rose by 2.7 trillion won ($2.36 billion) to 383 trillion won at the end of June. It was the fastest monthly growth since November last year, when mortgage lending by the six banks grew by 3.1 trillion w

SsangYong Motor said Monday its June sales fell 10 percent last month from a year earlier due to slowing demand in emerging markets. The South Korean unit of Indian carmaker Mahindra & Mahindra sold 12,697 vehicles in June, down from 14,167 units a year earlier, the carmaker said in a statement. Domestic sales rose 8.1 percent to 10,535 units last month from 9,750 units a year earlier. But exports plunged 51 percent to 2,162 autos from 4,417 during the same period, the statement said. In the Jan

Taekwang Power Holdings, a unit of South Korean textile and shoemaker Taekwang, said Monday that it has received approval from the Vietnamese government to build a $2.3 billion power plant in the Southeast Asian country.Taekwang Power has been seeking to build the plant with total capacity of 1,200 megawatts in the northeastern Nam Dinh Province, with a slew of South Korean firms, including Doosan Heavy Industries & Construction and POSCO Engineering & Construction, participating in the project.

South Korean stocks traded almost flat Monday morning, with top market cap Samsung Electronics and No. 2 SK hynix falling on profit-taking.The benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index gained 0.32 point, or 0.01 percent, to 2,392.11 as of 11:15 a.m.Market kingpin Samsung Electronics shed 0.38 percent, and SK hynix, a major chipmaker, dropped 2.08 percent.In contrast, Naver, the country's top Internet portal operator, gained 0.24 percent, and Hyundai Motor, the No. 1 automaker, rose 0.31 percen

Samsung Heavy Industries, a major shipbuilder here, said Monday that it has clinched a $240 million deal to build two shuttle oil tankers.Under the deal with AET, an affiliate of Malaysian shipping firm MISC, Samsung Heavy will build the two vessels by January 2020, the company said in a regulatory filing.A shuttle tanker is a ship designed to transport oil from an offshore oil field to a storage tank, and is equipped with a variety of offloading equipment.With the latest deal, Samsung Heavy has