SEOUL, Dec. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — Kim Kil-jun, a taxi driver for 22 years, thought his taxi-hailing app was like a business partner, something that helped him get more fares, but now he feels like the platform has turned on him and become a powerful competitor in South Korea’s growing mobility market. The app’s operator, [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean IT giant Kakao Corp. said Thursday it has decided to delay the launch of its carpool service after a taxi driver committed suicide by setting himself on fire in protest. Kakao, which operates South Korea’s most popular mobile messenger application, KakaoTalk, earlier kicked off a pilot run [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s tax agency launched an investigation into a local office of U.S. tech giant Google Inc. amid rumors of tax evasion by some YouTubers here, industry sources said Wednesday. Earlier in the day, the National Tax Service (NTS) sent auditors and investigators to the headquarters of Google Korea [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will now be able to impose value added tax on Google, Amazon, and other foreign IT companies. The National Assembly passed a bill to amend the Value Added Tax Act on Saturday, which will allow for the imposition of value added tax on profits raised from online [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — GS Caltex Corp. and SK Energy Co., South Korea’s leading refiners, have teamed up to launch QBoo, a smart storage service found at gas stations. QBoo allows parcel exchanges, buying and selling second-hand goods, and storing laundry and other goods, using storage lockers. This will increase the inflow of customers at [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 10 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will hold the 2019 Korea Grand Sale, an annual sales event to woo foreigners, early next year, the Visit Korea Committee (VKC) said Monday. During the upcoming discount event, which will take place from Jan. 17 to Feb. 28, local businesses will offer steep discounts and a [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 9 (Korea Bizwire) — Chinese group tourists, who helped fuel local retail sector growth in recent years, have yet to make a full comeback despite the easing of restrictions by Beijing, South Korean duty-free store operators said Sunday. The assessment came as official data from the Bank of Korea showed that 475,000 Chinese [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 7 (Korea Bizwire) — Hawaiian Airlines Inc. has introduced Bid Up, a program allowing passengers to upgrade their seats from economy to business via auction, for routes between South Korea or Japan and Hawaii. Bid Up was first introduced on routes between Hawaii and North America in 2016. More than 55,000 customers have [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 6 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Government announced on Wednesday that it plans to introduce call taxis specifically designed to prevent taxi drivers from rejecting customers as well as reservation taxis available exclusively for female customers before the end of the year. These taxis will be allowed to operate immediately following official [...]
JEJU, Dec. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s first for-profit hospital received the final approval from the Jeju Special Self-Governing Province on Wednesday, putting an end to 16 years of controversy over the introduction of investor-owned medical institutions. Jeju Gov. Won Hee-ryong announced the approval of the Greenland International Hospital as a for-profit hospital on [...]