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Oct 7, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- From higher caps for low-skilled workers to a training center for shipbuilding specialists, South Korea is ramping up efforts to attract foreign workers also being courted by neighboring Japan and Taiwan. Average pay for low-skilled foreign workers in South Korea significantly outpaced comparable figures in Japan and Taiwan as of 2022, according to Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- South Korea's SK group is doubling down on a major restructuring campaign, with plans to free up 80 trillion won ($60.8 billion) by 2026 to invest in artificial intelligence and semiconductors. At a recent meeting with the heads of key subsidiaries, SK Chairman Chey Tae-won stressed the need for the group to streamline its operations with an eye on market shifts.
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Sep 24, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- The Samsung group is stepping up the hiring of high school graduates as the labor market for highly skilled talent grows tighter in South Korea. By assigning high school graduates not just to production lines but also to research and development, the tech conglomerate seeks to lift the level of its manufacturing.
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Sep 19, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- More than 40% of South Koreans hold a favorable opinion of Japan, poll results released Thursday show, the highest level ever and nearly even with the proportion of people who view the country negatively. The East Asia Institute, a South Korean think tank, found in an August online survey that 41.7% of the 1,006 respondents said they had a favorable or somewhat favorable impression of Japan, up 12.8 percentage points from last year's poll.
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Sep 17, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- As South Korea ramps up development of its supply chain for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) for artificial intelligence computing, Japanese chipmaking equipment companies are seeking supply deals with the companies that dominate the field. Tokyo Electron, Japan's largest chip equipment maker, is setting up a fourth South Korean research and development center in Yongin, near Seoul. The facility, slated to open in 2026, will feature advanced equipment that customers can use for prototyping.
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Sep 13, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- Big Ocean is breaking down barriers as K-Pop's first deaf boy band, incorporating sign language into its content and using assistive technologies to reach fans in South Korea and around the world. Big Ocean released its third single, "Slow," in August. The song's message is that anything is possible as long as you keep moving forward, even if it takes a long time, according to the members. They also wanted to cheer on athletes at the Paris Paralympics.
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Sep 13, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Azusa Kawakami |Nami Matsuura
NEW YORK/SEOUL -- After scrapping its electric-vehicle development tie-up with Honda Motor, General Motors is betting on partnership with Hyundai Motor as Chinese competition and slowing U.S. and European demand force automakers to rethink their plans. The two companies announced a memorandum of understanding Thursday covering EV and software development for both passenger and commercial vehicles, as well as battery materials procurement and hydrogen technology.
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Sep 6, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- South Korea will start certifying the safety of electric vehicle batteries under a set of regulations unveiled Friday, seeking to address growing worries about battery fires and keep the country's fast-growing EV industry on track. The move comes after an EV exploded in a parking garage at an apartment complex in August, causing hundreds of residents to evacuate. Extensive discussions between the government and the automobile industry were held after the incident.
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Sep 4, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- South Korea's HiteJinro, maker of soju and other alcoholic beverages, is focusing on Southeast Asia with plans for a plant in Vietnam, aiming to more than triple overseas sales by 2030 as it rides the wave of South Korean pop culture. "We want to popularize Jinro with a sense of mission as the nation's soju," Hwang Jung-ho, an executive in charge of HiteJinro's overseas business, said at a June press conference in Vietnam.
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Sep 2, 2024 | 
asia.nikkei.com | Nami Matsuura
SEOUL -- South Korea is grappling with increasingly widespread abuse of artificial intelligence technology to make pornographic deepfake videos, frequently involving both victims and perpetrators in their teens. A 28-year-old man was sentenced this past Wednesday to five years in prison for producing sexually explicit deepfakes using photos of women including alumni of Seoul National University.
