While the COVID-19 pandemic has impeded the transfer of goods via ship, with stricter rules to limit the number of crew members boarding and coming ashore, a small South Korean venture company is offering a new kind of delivery service using drones. Marine Drone Tech, a drone logistics company based in Busan, is the first company in Korea to officially register a maritime drone delivery service. It received its business registration certificate from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Tr

With 5.5% decline, country‘s overseas performance relatively good compared to other economies

Small businesses and microenterprises that have suffered due to COVID-19 and the accompanying restrictions could be eligible for government subsidies as early as July, as the legislative process is underway. According to officials with the ruling Democratic Party of Korea and the government on Sunday, their representatives were currently fine-tuning the legal framework to offer compensation to microenterprises that had been ordered to close or scale back their operations as part of the national

Local firms call for protection against imported solar cells

GC WellBeing will conduct a phase 2 clinical trial of its liver drug Laennec, to repurpose it as a COVID-19 treatment, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Friday. This puts the total count of domestic pursuits for COVID-19 treatments at 14 and vaccines at eight. Among them, Celltrion’s monoclonal antibody regdanvimab is the only one to have been emergency-approved. Laennec is made from human placenta. Having been approved in Korea in 2005, the drug has been in use for 16 years a

Hanwha Group said Friday that Chairman Kim Seung-youn will come back to management as an unregistered representative of three Hanwha units, ending his seven-year absence. According to Hanwha Group, the chairman will take the post in the holdings firm Hanwha Corp., energy and chemical company Hanwha Solutions and Hanwha Engineering & Construction, starting next month. In 2014, Kim was sentenced to an imprisonment of three years, suspended for five years, for a breach of trust and had to res

South Korea on Friday paved the way to approving Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 as another group of pharmaceutical experts positively opined on the vaccine’s efficacy and safety. On the same day, Korea received enough Pfizer vaccines to inoculate 58,500 people, sourced from the global COVAX facility. This lot, under special import exemptions, can be used without the Drug Ministry’s emergency approval, with the first round of vaccinations to start Saturday for frontlin

Smilegate said Friday it will release Wonhon: A vengeful spirit to recount the atrocities South Koreans suffered under Japanese colonial rule and to celebrate the upcoming 102th anniversary of March 1 Independence Movement Day. According to the Korean gaming company, the prologue version of Wonhon will be unveiled on its content sourcing and distributing platform Smilegate Stove on March 1. Developed by Busan Sanai Games and published by Super.com, the thriller PC game takes place during th

Walt Disney said Friday it has appointed Tom Oh as chief of its Korean branch to bolster its presence in the country. Tom Oh, whose previous post was the head of direct-to-consumer business division of Walt Disney Korea, has been promoted to the general manager and representative director. Oh will spearhead Disney’s strategies and overall business in Korea. Kim So-youn, who has worked for Disney for 14 years after joining the company in 2007, will fill in Kim’s previous post. O

Samsung Electronics Co. was the world's fourth-largest spender on research and development (R&D) activities in 2019, a report showed Friday, trailing behind US and Chinese tech titans. Samsung, the world's largest memory chip and smartphone producer, invested 15.5 billion euros ($18.8 billion) in 2019 to rank fourth among global firms in R&D spending, according to the Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology which cited data from the 2020 European Union Industrial R&D Investme

  Mercedes-Benz Korea, Hyundai Motor and seven other companies will voluntarily recall over 470,000 vehicles to fix faulty components, the transport ministry said Thursday. This is the latest in a series of recalls by carmakers operating in South Korea and vehicle importers due to problems with vehicle components. The nine companies, including Honda Motor, Audi-Volkswagen Korea and Kia, are recalling a combined 478,371 units due to faulty components in 171 models, the Ministry of Land,

Krafton said Thursday it has raised the salary of new and existing employees by as much as 20 million won ($18,000), becoming the best-paying gaming firm in South Korea. According to the publisher of globally popular shooting game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, entry-level game developers and other staff members joining the company this year will earn 60 million won and 50 million won a year, respectively. For existing employees, the company granted a raise of 20 million won to develop

China’s CATL zeroes in on Korean rivals in both high and low-end EV markets

South Korea’s trade minister said on Thursday that the government is poised to cooperate with Eastern European countries in green business, including the development of low carbon energy. Speaking at the KOREA-V4 Economic Cooperation Forum, Minister for Trade Yoo Myung-hee said the government is ready for economic cooperation with V4 countries -- Poland, Hungry, the Czech Republic and Slovakia -- who are “shifting to renewable energy.” “Eastern European countries are m

SK Holdings said on Thursday that it is teaming up with US hydrogen company Plug Power to branch out into the hydrogen market in Asia. The partnership comes after the South Korean conglomerate invested 1.85 trillion won and acquired some 10 percent of shares in Plug Power, becoming the largest shareholder of the hydrogen giant. An online deal closing ceremony was held Thursday and was attended by executives of both companies including CEO of SK Holdings Jang Dong-hyun, Vice Chairman of SK E&a