On Feb. 25, patients and their families were filling up seats and waiting in the main lobby of Konkuk University Medical Center in Seoul.Those who could not find a chair either had to stand at the back or find a spot on the second floor.They were not there waiting to be treated at the hospital, but to take in a classical music performance by a special ensemble organized by Olympus Korea, the Korean company of the global camera and medical device maker.Classical music has been known to be highly

Dongbu Daewoo Electronics is expected to start anew this week as it relocates its headquarters to southern Seoul.The company, which was acquired by Dongbu Group a year ago, will move from Myeong-dong into the group’s headquarters this Friday in Gangnam, where other domestic tech heavyweights such as Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix are located.A Dongbu Daewoo Electronics official said, however, that it would be the “same business” as usual for the company, despite media reports that the relocati

Dongbu Daewoo Electronics is moving to liquidate its manufacturing plant in Spain as a part of its efforts to boost and realign its production concentration in Korea, China and Mexico, a company official said.The planned sell-off, which was “under consideration for some time,” is in part due to high labor costs in the region. Also, the latest debt crisis that affected the eurozone including Spain had made it move forward with the plan, the official said.Daewoo Electronics’ Spain manufacturing pl

President Park Geun-hye said Friday that the country’s push to reform debt-ridden public firms should first focus on making “visible” progress at larger institutions as they are responsible for more than 80 percent of the total debts at public organizations.The remark marked the second time in less than a week that Park has talked about the need for public sector reform after she warned Monday of stern responses to any labor attempts to derail the campaign. This shows how committed she is to the

SK Chemicals, a listed Korean chemical materials company, is seeking to boost its super engineering plastic materials business for automobiles.The company said on Thursday that it is in talks with Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors, as well as some European automakers to supply polyphenylene sulfide.When asked whether SK Chemicals is engaging German carmakers such as BMW, a company official said it is too early to disclose this since it is in the “pre-marketing stage.”Hyundai and Kia are still testing

[Reporter's Column] Can’t live with it, can’t live without it. This is what most tech-savvy Koreans think when Google comes to mind.It may be big overseas where it spends billions of dollars to invest in and acquire start-ups. But the global search giant is relatively a “small kid on the block” in Korea, the playground of Naver and Daum.This is why, for some observers, it seemed fair when Korea‘s communications regulator recently slapped Google with a fine of just 210 million won ($196,000).It m