Financially faltering STX Group, the nation’s fourth largest shipbuilder, said Friday it completed the sale of STX Energy to Orix, a Japanese financial service company. “The group’s board approved the sale of its remaining 43.15 percent stake to Orix for 270 billion won ($240 million) in its latest meeting,” the group said in a press release. With the deal, Orix’s stake in STX Energy, whose core businesses are power generation and solar power manufacturing, soared to 93.2 percent. Orix secured a

Frequent and fractured updates by the U.S. National Transportation and Safety Board on what happened in the cockpit of the doomed Asiana jet that crash-landed at San Francisco Airport have triggered a flood of speculations over the exact cause of the incident. News reports on the accident have flooded the media based on varied information attained from the Washington-based NTSB’s press briefings. In the four days since the accident, the chief investigator hosted two media conferences, releasing

A pilot’s latest testimony indicated that a mechanical problem could be to blame for the Boeing 777 passenger jet’s crash landing in San Francisco over the weekend that killed two passengers and injured 180 others on board. According to a briefing by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday (Washington time), the captain of the Asiana Airlines flight told NTSB investigators that the automatic throttle system was not maintaining the speed at which he had thought it was programmed.

The East Sea (or Donghae) Free Economic Zone Authority, which will be responsible for the development of a newly designated FEZ, opened in Donghae City, Gangwon Province, on Wednesday.The FEZ Authority set a bold vision to build four globally competitive districts, including an industrial cluster for material businesses, on the east coast by 2024. Trade, Industry and Energy Vice Minister Kim Jae-hong, who joined the opening ceremony with officials from Gangwon Province, said, “I expect the East

The investigation into the cause of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214 crash landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday (San Francisco time) is making progress just one day after the accident that killed two passengers and injured about 180 others.The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the Korean inspection team dispatched to the crash site revealed some of the facts of the moments just before the landing and the investigation of the pilots.The focus of the joint investiga

With the weak yen trend expected to continue, local think tanks are issuing a negative outlook for exports for the second half of the year.“The rise in the yen against the dollar above the psychological mark of 100 last week, again in a month, is considered a trend among market watchers, not a temporary jump,” said Chung Sung-choon from the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.The movement toward devaluation of the yen regained steam from the end of June when the global financial ma

The nation’s free economic zones, specially designated regions to attract foreign investment, will face restructuring based on their development performance, according to government officials.After a 10-year-long investment, Korea has eight FEZs, and the number of business districts in them has soared to 101. However, only 52.5 percent or 53 business districts are under development. “A revised law in August 2011 gave FEZs three years to find a land developer. Based on the law, the government can

As the economic growth of India, Brazil and the EU is projected to be slower than expected in the latter part of this year, Korean exporters in these markets need to prepare for the risk of delayed payment, according to the state-run Korea Trade Insurance Corp., known as K-sure.The outlook for growth in these three markets was made based on a survey of officials from 14 overseas branches of K-sure on risk of nonpayment in the nation’s key export markets. The main business of K-sure is to guarant