• US tariff threat looms over Samsung, SK hynix expansion SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - South Korea's top chipmakers, Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, are bracing for renewed pressure from Washington to expand their United States manufacturing footprint, days after the two chipmakers committed 800 trillion won, about $522.8 billion, to a sweeping expansion of South Korea's domestic semiconductor base. Industry sources said Sunday that both companies are weighing ho
• Trump filings show Coupang trades amid scandal SEOUL, July 05 (AJP) - United States President Donald Trump bought and sold shares of Coupang, the most-popular ecommerce service operator in South Korea, in the months surrounding the e-commerce giant's massive data breach, according to financial disclosure reports filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Three reports released in May and this month show 18 trades in Coupang Inc. shares between
• U.S. stock buying seen keeping won weak through Feb. 2027 SEOUL, July 04 (AJP) - South Korea's won is likely to remain under sustained depreciation pressure through at least February 2027, driven by surging overseas equity investments by Korean households and companies, particularly into U.S. stocks, according to a report released Saturday by the Korea Institute of Finance. The report said the dollar-won exchange rate has undergone a structural upward shift si
• South Korea gasoline prices fall below 2,000 won for seventh straight week SEOUL, July 04 (AJP) - Retail fuel prices in South Korea extended their decline for a seventh consecutive week, with the nationwide average gasoline price falling below 2,000 won per liter as lower global crude prices and the government's latest fuel price cap took effect. The average price of regular gasoline fell 55.7 won from the previous week to 1,952.1 won ($1.43) per liter during the week of June
• Canada's submarine award in Korea's favor, but final shape uncertain SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - Canada is moving closer to selecting South Korea as the preferred supplier for its multibillion-dollar submarine program, although the final structure of the award remains uncertain.
• Samsung, SK, Hanwha, Hyundai bet $194 bln on southeastern Korea SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - South Korea's ambition to build a "Chip Republic" expanded well beyond semiconductors on Friday, as four of the country's largest conglomerates pledged a combined 297 trillion won ($194.3 billion) to build artificial intelligence data centers, robot factories, defense systems.

AJP Briefing

• Young South Koreans sour on Lee's housing policy SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) — More than half of young South Koreans are disgruntled with the current administration's housing policy amid sky-high rent prices. A survey released Friday by polling firm Korea Gallup showed that 46 percent of respondents viewed the President Lee Jae Myung administration's housing policy negatively, compared with 26 percent who viewed it positively. Negative sentiment was strongest among younger adults, with 56 percent of people in their 30s and 51 percent
• KOSPI rebounds 5.8 percent on chip rally SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - South Korean stocks staged their sharpest rebound of the year on Friday, as institutional buying and a fresh artificial intelligence catalyst for Samsung Electronics erased most of the previous session's rout in a single day. The benchmark KOSPI surged 5.8 percent to close at 8,088.3. The index added 440.3 points, recovering the bulk of Thursday's 7.9 percent plunge, as a report that Anthropic is in talks with Samsung Electronics to manufacture a custom AI chip r
• Korea's Lee heads to NATO summit as Seoul courts defense partners SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) -South Korean President Lee Jae Myung will travel to Türkiye and Mongolia next week for a five-day diplomatic swing aimed at expanding Seoul’s security, defense industry and supply chain partnerships, the presidential office said Friday. Lee will attend the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Ankara from July 7 to 8 before making a state visit to Mongolia from July 9 to 11, National Security Adviser Wi Sung-lac said at a briefing at Cheong Wa Dae,
• Samsung defies chip rout as KOSPI sinks SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) -The Seoul market extended losses as foreign selloff continued Friday. Chip stocks were mixed. Samsung Electronics rose 1.6 percent to 290,500 won (about 188 dollars), while SK hynix fell 1.1 percent to 2,163,000 won (about 1,398 dollars). The KOSPI 2.18 percent to 7,281.39. The overnight catalyst was a US chip rout, where the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell as much as 6 percent, its worst two-session stretch since early June, as investors questioned stretched AI

ASIA Insight

• Spiritual Asia (30) The quiet strength of Sikhism: A faith built on service, integrity and freedom This is the thirtieth installment of AJP's Spiritual Asia series, which explores the religious traditions, philosophical ideas and moral foundations that have shaped Asia's civilizations. In this concluding chapter of our three-part journey through Japanese Shinto, we examine how a faith rooted in reverence for nature was transformed into an instrument of the modern state, and how it later returned to everyday life. SEOUL, July 04 (AJP) - Religion should not be measured solely by the n by Abe Kwak
• Korea-Japan weak currency coupling tells different stories SEOUL, July 02 (AJP) - For South Korean policymakers battling a persistently weak won, the culprit is relatively straightforward: heavy foreign selling of Korean equities and an insatiable domestic appetite for dollar-denominated assets. The picture is more puzzling in Japan. Despite record foreign buying of Japanese stocks this year, the yen has continued to languish near multi-decade lows, defying the conventional expectation that capital inflows should support a country's currency. The by Kim Yeon-jae

AJP Watch

• North Korea, DPRK, or Joseon? Seoul's naming dilemma SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - Defined by its neighbor "hostile state," South Korea is rethinking how to address North Korea. The Unification Ministry said Friday that growing calls to refer to North Korea by its official name are part of a broader process of building public consensus, as a linguistic debate over inter-Korean relations moves from academic and religious circles into the center of national politics. At issue is whether South Korea should continue using the term "North Kor
• Tiny Seoul studio bets on brutal dungeon survival sim SEOUL, July 02 (AJP) - Battle games are familiar. Fantasy worlds are crowded. Escape-themed entertainment has faded from fashion. But blend dungeon crawling, settlement management and punishing survival together, and perhaps there is still room for something new. That is the wager of a six-person studio in Seoul. In a compact office tucked inside Seoul's Gasan Digital Complex, six desks sit shoulder to shoulder, three on each side of a narrow room. At one, a developer patiently places pix

AJP Focus

• Bond rally signals sobriety on Korea's economy – weak without chips SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) - From the look of the sovereign bond market in July, South Korea's economy is running solidly on strong exports while inflation, despite energy shocks from the prolonged Gulf crisis, remains broadly contained around 3 percent, suggesting the Bank of Korea may need no more than one additional rate hike from the current 2.50 percent. Compared with the wild swings in equities and the won's slide to near three-decade lows, South Korea's bond market has remained rem
• Korea's chip republic meets the law of semiconductor cycles SEOUL, July 03 (AJP) -The market has finally started asking the uncomfortable question. For the last 18 months, investors treated AI memory as a one-way trade. High-bandwidth memory (HBM) shortages, exploding AI server demand and the near-duopoly of Samsung Electronics and SK hynix turned South Korea into the center of the global AI hardware story. After Seoul unveiled a string of government-backed semiconductor mega projects swelling above $1 trillion across Yongin, Honam and Chungcheong, inv