SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s corporate bond market is showing renewed strength as expectations of interest rate cuts fuel demand for higher-yielding securities, driving credit spreads to their lowest levels of the year. According to data from the Korea Financial Investment Association and Infomax, the spread between three-year AA- corporate bonds and equivalent [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Naver’s livestreaming platform Chzzk has permanently suspended the channel of a 12-year-old elementary school “Vtuber,” citing a violation of its rule barring anyone under 14 from joining. The decision has reignited debate over child safety and regulation in the fast-growing world of virtual broadcasting. The girl, born in 2013, [...]
SEONGNAM, Sept. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Naver Webtoon has launched a new short-form animation service, “Cuts,” marking its first foray into building a platform for entirely new content rather than simply expanding its vast library of webtoon intellectual property. Speaking at Naver’s Green Factory headquarters in Seongnam, south of Seoul, Kim Hyo-jung, the company’s chief [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 15 (Korea Bizwire) — Hyundai Motor Group is grappling with twin challenges in the U.S. market: the imminent end of federal tax credits for electric vehicles and a delay in the completion of its joint battery plant with LG Energy Solution. The Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act incentives, which offered up to $7,500 in [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — More than 300 South Korean workers detained at a U.S. battery plant construction site have safely returned home, but the shockwaves are likely to reverberate across corporate boardrooms. South Korea’s largest conglomerates — including LG Energy Solution, Hyundai Motor, Samsung Electronics, Samsung SDI, SK hynix, SK On, CJ CheilJedang, [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — The sun had just dipped behind the skyline of Gwanghwamun when demonstrators began to gather, clutching banners, candles, and hastily printed placards. By nightfall, the streets outside the U.S. Embassy had become a stage for simmering outrage. Hundreds marched through central Seoul on Saturday evening, their chants ricocheting off the [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — When Ji, a 41-year-old technician from South Korea, finally walked into the arrivals hall at Incheon International Airport this week, he was carrying more than a suitcase. He carried a story of humiliation. “The food was like garbage. We couldn’t eat it,” Ji said, recalling the seven days he [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — When a popular YouTube commentator recently began selling a “990 won salt bread,” it was more than a marketing stunt. It was a pointed jab at what Koreans have come to call “breadflation,” a steep rise in bread prices that many believe has made the staple disproportionately expensive at home compared [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — At 3:23 p.m. on Friday, the arrival hall at Incheon International Airport filled with tears, embraces, and a palpable sense of relief. More than 300 South Korean workers, shackled only days earlier in Georgia during a sweeping U.S. immigration raid, finally walked free onto home soil. Families pressed against [...]
POHANG, Sept. 12 (Korea Bizwire) — A team of South Korean researchers has unveiled a wearable device that can measure blood sugar in real time using only a person’s sweat, a potential breakthrough for diabetes management that avoids the need for finger pricks or invasive patches. The research team, led by Professor Han Sae-kwang at POSTECH [...]