On October 10, 2013, senior dignitaries from the Ajman Free Economic Authority (AFZA) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be visiting Seoul to speak about investment opportunities in the UAE.  The dignitaries hope to initiate and build a long and lucrative relationship of economic cooperation bet

It has been pointed out that the Lee Myung-bak administration put more regulations in force than before, in spite of his promise to abolish them in the interest of national competitiveness. The Hyundai Research Institute published a report on September 29, titled the Outcome and Limitations of Recen

It has been found that every senior citizen aged 65 or older is supported by six working-age adults between the age of 15 and 64 in the aging society of Korea. The aging of the population is expected to accelerate until 2030, to the point of the ratio reaching one to 2.6. According to data published

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) announced on September 30 that it has restarted the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS) designed to remove radioactive materials contained in contaminated water.According to Kyodo News, TEPCO has reactivated ALPS, which stopped 22 hours after test operation

Undergraduate students majoring in industrial design at Dongseo University have consecutively won the big three global design awards. On September 30, Dongseo University announced that two teams from its industrial design major won the globally renowned “Red Dot Award” held in Germany. One of the te

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (MSIP)’s budget for next year for the pursuit of a creative economy is 13.5746 trillion won (US$12.6117 billion). Funding for a creative economy, research & development (R&D), and information and communications technology (ICT) increased 5.8% compared

An appeals court upheld the four-year prison term imposed by a lower court for embezzling nearly 50 billion won (US$46.7 million) of company funds from group affiliates to make personal investments in stock futures and options. The court also overturned the acquittal of SK Group Vice-Chairman Chey J

On September 27, Korea Midland Power (KOMIPO) held a ground-breaking ceremony for the construction of Seoul’s first thermal power plant. 1.0181 trillion won (US$947 million) will go into the construction of the world’s first urban underground power plant. The construction is set to be completed by S

The world’s first Louis Vuitton airport store, which opened at Incheon two years ago, is losing its prestige. The French luxury brand is witnessing a continuing decline in sales due to its waning popularity and a decrease in Japanese customers.According to Seoul Incheon International Airport,s duty-

On August 14, the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency (KORAD) held an announcement ceremony of its new agency name and CI under the slogan, “KORAD considers humanity's coexistence with nature.”The name change is made in order to get rid of the negative image of the words “radioactive” and “waste” include

“The past 30 years was like a warm-up in the Internet industry, and the upcoming change will be much more drastic than what we saw during the period. Korea is standing at a critical juncture before joining the ranks of global Internet powerhouses, which means it has to clean things up and start fres

Beginning next year, obtaining patents in the US, China, Japan, and the EU will be much faster.KIPO announced on September 24 that KIPO Commissioner Young-min Kim made agreement to implement the IP5-PPH for accelerating the patent examination procedure among the five largest intellectual property of

Global corporations such as Amazon are nurturing social networking service (SNS) experts in Korea.  According to industry sources, the industry-academic council to be launched by the Korea Social Network Association (KSNA) next month is going to be joined by Amazon, Wildfire and so forth to this end

A major Korean law firm is looking into suing Boeing and the US federal government for damages on behalf of the Korean victims in the Asiana crash.“The landing accident and the exacerbation of losses for the passengers were due to manufacturing defects of the aircraft. We are consulting Korean victi

Korea’s F-X Phase 3 project, the largest-ever procurement program for the Air Force, will be reviewed all over again. Controversy over the vacuum of in-combat capabilities caused by the replacement of old fighter jets and the securing of additional budget is expected. Baek Yoon-hyung, spokesperson f

Kaesong Industrial Complex, which reopened on September 16, operated normally during the holiday season, except for Chuseok on September 19. On September 17, normalization efforts continued as 335 South Korean employees went into the complex and 530 returned. In total, 35,000 North Korean workers go

According to sources in the financial industry on September 15, the government has decided to improve transparency in auto repair expenses by supporting revision of the related laws.  The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport (MLIT), the Financial Services Commission (FSC), and the Financi

The Korean government has made a policy decision to convert WiBro services, which are considered to have failed, into long term evolution time division duplex (LTE-TDD) services, which are becoming more popular around the world. The idea is to keep up with the global trend. No less than 59 mobile ca

According to Kyodo News on September 13, Kazuhiko Yamashita, an executive of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that runs the Fukushima nuclear power plant, said that he does not think that the current situation is under control. He expressed his opinion at the Democratic Party's meeting of the Nu

There is controversy over a French weekly newspaper lampooning the nuclear contaminated water leaks in Fukushima after Japan was announced to host the 2020 Olympics. On September 12, Kyodo News and other Japanese press reported that on September 11, the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné publish