Lee Bok-hyun, chief of the Financial Supervisory Service, pledged to help local finance companies beef up their presence in the overseas market on Monday. The country's financial watchdog will first hold talks with counterparts in Southeast Asia, which are considered the major market for domestic financial firms. “I understand that there are demands from local banks and securities firms, asking the FSS to communicate with foreign financial watchdogs in markets that they have entered,&

Kim Jun, CEO of South Korea’s largest energy company SK Innovation, reaffirmed the company’s commitment to go net zero with more detailed action plans to be implemented across the firm. In a recent interview with the firm’s official news channel SKinno News, Kim revealed that this will be the first year to begin implementation of its greenhouse gas emission reduction plan called “All Time Net Zero.” The All Time Net Zero vision was announced last year during the 60t

  French President Emmanuel Macron's recent proposal to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 is believed to be the optimal solution to tackle the country's soon-to-run-out public pension reserves, French economist Philippe Aghion said during an interview with The Korea Herald on Jan. 24. "The best way to deal with the pension deficit is to increase how much time you spend in life working, and that’s what the reform (in France) intends to do – increase the number of years

The Industrial Bank of Korea will open an office in Poland in the first half of this year as part of its overseas expansion into the European market, the state-run lender said Monday. On Jan. 24, the company submitted a license approval application for the Polish office to local financial supervisory authorities. The establishment of the Polish office, which had been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Ukraine crisis, is one of the priority items under IBK Chairman Kim Seong-tae's

LG Group said Monday it has kicked off the construction to renovate the lower floors of its symbolic LG Twin Towers, a landmark in Yeouido, western Seoul, where its major affiliates including LG Electronics are headquartered. Since the buildings were established in 1987, it is the second time the nation's fourth-largest conglomerate carries out a renovation of the two skyscrapers. It renovated the working spaces in the upper level floors in 2009, and it is the it is the first time the group

Four out of six South Korean companies picked the European Union’s upcoming due diligence act as the No. 1 concern for their ongoing environmental, social and governance efforts this year, saying heightened regulations could pose a direct threat to export-driven companies that are not yet fully ready. A survey of 300 companies affiliated with the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the nation’s biggest lobby, showed Sunday that 40.3 percent of the responding companies selected th

LG Group, the nation’s fourth-largest conglomerate, renewed its commitment to achieving net-zero goals by 2050 in a groupwide report on emissions reduction Sunday -- a first among major conglomerates in South Korea. In the report, titled "LG Net Zero Special Reporting: Placing the First Stepping Stone," the group outlines the plans and strategies LG companies will adopt to achieve the net-zero goals. Seven affiliates have signed on to the plan, including LG Electronics, LG Displa

South Koreans have faced surging electricity, gas and heating bills, with the January inflation index hitting a new high since the 1998 financial crisis. According to the Korean Statistical Information Service on Sunday, the public utility price index -- calculated based on the consumer price index that is considered an inflation barometer -- logged 135.75 points in January, up 31.7 percent from the same month last year. This indicates the highest on-year inflation of monthly energy prices that

South Korean internet giant Naver said Friday it will launch its own generative pretrained transformer, or GPT, for search functions by the end of June, as OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has been taking the tech world by storm. “We are gearing up to handle new search trends, such as the generative AI that is gaining a lot of attention now. And we plan to introduce our own upgraded version of SearchGPT in the first half of this year,” Chief Executive Officer Cho

South Korean auto parts manufacturer SNT Dynamics said Monday it signed an export deal with Turkish commercial and military vehicle manufacturer BMC to supply automatic transmissions to produce tanks for the Turkish government. BMC is the firm in charge of delivering 1,000 Altays, a Turkish battle tank, to the government starting from this year under a Turkish-Qatari partnership. The Altay project, pushed forward by the Turkish government, has faced supply issues in the past. BMC has been seekin

South Korea's financial regulator said Friday that local credit card firms can introduce Apple Pay, the long-awaited mobile payment service of US tech giant Apple Inc., as they have followed relevant procedures. There have been reports for months that Hyundai Card Co., a local credit card unit of Hyundai Motor Group, is in talks with Apple over the launch of Apple Pay that allows customers to make payments using iPhones and other Apple devices. Market watchers initially expected the service

Government that once encouraged entrepreneurs to produce masks now provides no guidelines for struggling companies

Sales of cosmetics products have seen a surge over the past week after the nation’s mask-wearing mandate was lifted here, according to data compiled by Shinsegae International, a local importer of foreign beauty brands, Thursday. US luxury makeup brand Hourglass posted a 149 percent jump in sales here from Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 right before and after eased masking rules, according to Shinsegae International. For the whole month of January, sales more than doubled compared to a year ago. The co

Korean Air said Thursday it is starting a “self-service” bag drop for domestic flights at Gimhae International Airport in Busan, as part of a growing trend within the global aviation industry but the first of its kind in South Korea. The air carrier said it plans to expand the service in phases after a six-month trial operation at the airport.

SK Bioscience has obtained product approval for its flu vaccine, Sky Cellflu, from Chile's health authorities, the first green light in a Latin American country, the South Korean vaccine developer said Thursday. Starting with Chile, SK Bioscience is planning to expand the number of countries licensed for Sky Cellflu in Latin America. Chile's drug approval is widely considered a regional standard among Latin American countries, the company added. Chile is the 10th country to have approv