The total debt of local governments and the public companies under their roofs is likely to exceed 100 trillion won ($890 billion) in 2012, according to officials of the Ministry of Security and Public Administration. Local autonomous governments include provinces, metropolitan cities, cities, counties and districts.The ministry sources said the debt of local governments is forecast to reach 40 trillion won ($36 billion) last year, while that of local public companies is likely to near at 70 tri

Daewoo International, a trading arm of POSCO, said Thursday it would start sales of natural gas, which will be produced from June in its two offshore gas blocks in Myanmar, to China. The company has explored natural gas in the A1 and A3 offshore blocks, Kyauk Phyu, Myanmar, since 2000 with a 51 percent stake. The produced gas will be sold to the China National Petroleum Corporation and the gas will be transferred to inland China from Myanmar through a 800km-long pipeline, which will be completed

Korea will implement packages in a new incentive program to encourage multinational companies to establish their Asian headquarters in the nation during the second half of this year, officials said Thursday.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy revealed the plan after holding a meeting to discuss boosting foreign direct investment among officials from 17 state-run FDI-related organizations and 17 local governments. “Previously, the government simply offered a cash reward to multinationals t

The government will push deregulation to attract more service firms to the nation’s free economic zones, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The ministry’s foreign direct investment policy had previously focused on luring manufacturing companies.“The service industries that FEZs will target for attraction include medical services, education, conferences and exhibitions, R&D and professional services, and business-support services,” MOTIE Vice Minister Kim Jae-hong said in a

About 350 executives of POSCO and its affiliates adopted a resolution on ethical behavior on Wednesday at a workshop in Songdo, Incheon, the company said. The move came after an executive from POSCO Energy, a key affiliate of the nation’s top steelmaker, resigned amid public anger over his mistreatment of a flight attendant last month. During the workshop, POSCO chairman Chung Joon-yang reportedly stressed the importance of good ethics to recover trust from employees and people, saying trust was

The government has begun in earnest to commercialize “graphene,” a new advanced material, announcing Tuesday six consortiums to lead material-related research and development projects.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said the commercialization of the material could spawn ultra-thin but strong electronics goods, such as paper-thin and flexible TV screens. Graphene, thin sheets of carbon, was discovered in 2004, rocking the science industry. The world’s thinnest and strongest nano-materi

Korea launched a four-day educational program on forest-related polices for a group of Indonesian policymakers from May 20-24, according to the Korea Forest Service.“About 15 officials from the Indonesian Ministry of Forestry and Perum Perhutani, an organization given a mandate by the Indonesian government to manage forests in Java and Madura, joined the program,” the KFS said. The program includes field trips and a variety of lectures on forest policy, including the nation’s reforestation and f

The state-run Korea National Oil Corp. will join Vietnam’s underground oil storage facility construction project, company officials said. “KNOC has decided to join the project to build an underground facility to store up to 3.8 million barrels of oil in Dung Quat, Vietnam, in cooperation with Vietnam-based PVOS,” the officials said, adding that the project would be KNOC’s first oil storage project overseas. Petro Vietnam Oil Stockpile embarked on the project to accommodate the needs of the oil a

Despite the planned resumption of construction for 52 high-voltage transmission cable towers in Miryang, South Gyeongsang Province, next week, Korea is highly likely to again face power shortages this summer and winter, according to industry watchers. The construction, which is essential to transmit and distribute power generated from the newly-built unit 3 of the Shin Gori nuclear power plant to the North Gyeongsang Province region, has been suspended since January this year when a farmer in hi

Cash-strapped STX Group, the nation’s fourth-largest shipbuilder, is reportedly in a dispute with Orix, a Japanese financial service provider, over the management rights to its affiliate STX Energy.The alleged conflict between the two companies started as Orix, which had bought a 43.1 percent stake in STX Energy for 360.1 billion won ($330 million) as a financial investor in December last year, emerged as the firm’s biggest shareholder by increasing its shareholding to 50.1 percent last month. O

A global survey has found that falling global shipbuilding orders have hit bottom after a five-year depression. According to Clarkson, a global shipping and shipbuilding market information provider, 277 new shipbuilding orders were reported in the first quarter of this year, which is a 93 percent increase from the same period in 2011 and a 39 percent increase from 2012. The new shipbuilding price index, another indicator to gauge the market direction, stopped falling from November last year, hov