LG Energy Solution has teamed up with Honda Motor Co. of Japan to build a joint venture battery plant in the United States. This is the first strategic cooperation agreement between a Korean battery maker and a Japanese automaker. Batteries made by the two companies will be used for Honda’s first de
The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) initiated short selling-related investigations on foreign securities companies. The first target is Morgan Stanley, and its probe on Merrill Lynch is scheduled to start soon.The inspections are to better grasp the current status of short selling targeting Sout
Lithium prices have hit a new record high in contrast to the gradual downward stabilization of other mineral prices. High lithium prices may serve as another opportunity for the Korean battery industry, which mainly produces ternary and quaternary batteries with a smaller lithium content compared wi
Hyundai Rotem and Hanwha Defense signed contracts worth US$5.76 billion to supply K2 Black Panther tanks and K9 Thunder self-propelled howitzers to Poland.The contracts represent the first phase of the framework agreement signed between Korean defense companies and the Polish Armed Forces on July 27
The Financial Supervisory Service is expanding its measures against illegal short selling. It recently set up a task force and initiated inspections at securities companies to that end.The first inspection targets are foreign securities companies, where the frequency of short selling targeting South
An increasing number of countries are enacting laws against China’s raw material supply chain domination. The examples include the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act recently signed into law and the Raw Materials Act in the making in Europe. Under the circumstances, South Korean electric vehicle (EV) batt
Demand for automotive OLED panels is growing, helping LG Display offset the drop in demand for both large LCD and OLED TV panels. The imbalance between supply and demand for automotive semiconductors began to gradually ease from the second half of 2022, revitalizing the downstream industry. Global s
The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry has recently conducted a survey of 300 South Korean manufacturers and announced on Aug. 28 that global clients asked 14.7 percent of the manufacturers to use renewable energy in the RE100 campaign.“The survey covers 80 large and 220 medium-sized manufacture
Hanwha Defense signed a contract on Aug. 26 to supply K9 Thunder Self-Propelled Howitzers (SPHs) to Poland, the company announced on Aug. 29.Valued at some US$2.4 billion, the contract is the first phase of the framework agreement, signed in late July as part of the efforts to strengthen the defense
Coway Co. will unveil its next lineup of home health appliances for the European market at IFA 2022 in September. The trade show, held in Berlin, is the largest of its kind in Europe for consumer electronics and home appliances. Coway is returning to Berlin for the first time since 2019 as IFA retur
Samsung Electronics has flexed its technological muscle by starting volume production of 3-nm chips for the first time in July. But the company is on alert as TSMC, the No. 1 player in the global foundry market, will begin mass production of 3-nm chips next month. This will lower the expectations th
South Korea’s semiconductor industry promotion law may miss the timing due to political strife.A special committee of the ruling People Power Party tabled the bill on Aug. 4 and further discussions for turning it into a law, including budget-related discussions, have shown no progress at all since t
South Korean semiconductor companies’ concerns are growing after the passage of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. The act is to provide US$39 billion and a 25 percent tax credit for companies building semiconductor facilities in the United States, and provide US$11 billion for those doing semicondu
Korea has won a large-scale nuclear power plant construction project for the first time in 13 years since its successful bid for the Baraka Nuclear Power Plant project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2009.The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on Aug. 25 that Korea Hydro & Nuclear
Korean automobile industry insiders are raising the call for the South Korean government to change its electric vehicle (EV) subsidy policy, as the United States and China are becoming increasingly nationalistic in the EV and EV battery industry. According to experts, however, the policy cannot be c
Samsung SDS announced on Aug. 25 that it will take part in the Migration to Post-quantum Cryptography (PQC) project hosted by the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE), part of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) of the United States, as the only Korean company al
The Korean startup investment market has enjoyed an unprecedented boom for years but is freezing rapidly, hitting hard startups looking for investment. In July, the number of domestic startup funding cased stood at 135 and the investment amounts totaled 836.9 billion won, according to the Startup Al
The current South Korea-China economic cooperation paradigm needs to be changed as South Korea's trade dependence on China is on the rise while China's dependence on South Korea is on the decline, the Korean Institute for International Economic Policy (KIEP) said in a report on Aug. 24.“Risk
Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) plans to launch a solar power project at the Bylong Coal Mine site in Australia within this year. The Australian government rejected KEPCO's plan to develop the coal mine in 2019 under its carbon-free policies.KEPCO will start a preliminary feasibility study fo
Hyundai Motor Group chairman Chung Eui-sun hurriedly left for the United States on Aug. 23 to deal with the fallout from the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in the United States.Hyundai Motor Co.'s IONIQ 5 and Kia Corp.'s EV6 electric vehicles were excluded from the list