• Seoul pledges 230,000 additional homes in capital area SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - More than 230,000 additional homes will be supplied in the Seoul metropolitan area in the coming years to curb housing prices amid a shortage of housing, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said on Thursday.
• Korea's fiscal deficit hits 3-year midyear low SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korea’s managed fiscal deficit narrowed to 84.4 trillion won ($59.6 billion) in the first half, its smallest midyear shortfall in three years, as the semiconductor upcycle and buoyant asset markets helped revive tax receipts and lift government revenue faster than spending.
• Korea's July auto exports hit record as eco-friendly cars drive gains SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korea's auto exports reached a record high for July, led by stronger shipments of eco-friendly vehicles to North America and Europe even as domestic sales barely grew, government data showed Thursday.
• Seoul defends nuclear submarine plan against Pyongyang's warning SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korea's planned nuclear-powered submarines will carry only conventional weapons and sit entirely within the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Thursday.
• HMM's Q2 profit jumps 52% as early peak season lifts freight rates SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korea's HMM, the country's largest container carrier, announced that second-quarter operating profit surged about 52 percent from a year earlier, as an early peak season and firmer freight rates powered a sharp recovery despite costlier fuel.
• SK hynix to break ground on chip packaging facility in Indiana SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) -SK hynix is set to break ground later this month on its $3.87 billion advanced semiconductor packaging plant in Indiana, the chipmaker’s first U.S. production base for packaging high-bandwidth memory used in artificial intelligence systems.

AJP Briefing

• KOSPI recovers above 6,800 as foreign buying fuels broader tech rally SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korean stocks jumped more than 3 percent on Thursday as foreign investors returned to the market, extending the rally for a fourth straight session, with an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven rebound spreading beyond Samsung Electronics and SK hynix to chip equipment makers and other technology shares. The benchmark KOSPI closed at 6,813.34, up 234.30 points or 3.56 percent from the previous session. The index climbed as high as 6,895.63 during the day before par
• Nexon Q2 profit slips even as MapleStory powers record first half SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - Nexon revealed that its second-quarter operating profit fell 17 percent from a year earlier, a decline that underscored tough comparisons for the Tokyo-listed South Korean game maker even as booming demand for its MapleStory franchise drove record first-half sales. Quarterly revenue edged up 2 percent to 121.1 billion yen ($759 million), while operating income slipped to 31.3 billion yen from 37.7 billion yen a year earlier. Net income jumped 77 percent to 29.6 billion

AJP ScaleUP

• Satellite antenna maker jumps 41% in KOSDAQ debut SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) — Shares of South Korean satellite communications equipment maker KNS Inc. surged on their KOSDAQ debut Thursday, trading more than 40 percent above their initial public offering price. The stock was trading at 15,480 won ($10.93) as of 2:37 p.m., up 40.73 percent from its IPO price of 11,000 won. It more than doubled to an intraday high of 24,600 won before giving back some of the gains. The strong debut comes as the company expands from commercial maritime equi
• Shares of chip parts maker jump on strong Q2 earnings SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - Shares of semiconductor parts maker Wonik QnC rose on Wednesday after it posted a more than twofold increase in second-quarter operating profit from a year earlier. Its shares closed 5.31 percent higher at 31,750 won (US$22.44). The gain came as consolidated operating profit jumped 119.1 percent from a year earlier to 30.9 billion won ($21.8 million) for the period between April and June, according to its preliminary earnings report released the same day. Revenue also

ASIA Insight

• Central Asia emerges as South Korea's AI frontier SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) -South Korea wants to become one of the world's top three artificial-intelligence powers, and Central Asia may offer something lacking at home - ample space, energy and governments willing to build the physical infrastructure that AI requires. But Seoul is arriving at a market where U.S., Gulf, Chinese and Japanese players are already staking out positions. Kazakhstan is planning a data-center zone with eventual capacity of 1 gigawatt. Uzbekistan is courting billi by Lee Jung-woo
• Pandemic hangover? Young Koreans opt solo as socializing gets pricey SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - For Jin, a corporate worker in his 30s, some friendships have simply become too expensive to maintain. “I feel uncomfortable meeting friends who want to eat somewhere expensive every single time,” he said. “I also don’t like taking turns paying for meals. Splitting the bill is just easier.” HJ Kim, 32, has reached much the same conclusion. What bothers her is not merely the price of dinner, but the invisible accounting that can begin once by Ryu Yuna

AJP Watch

• Korea still looks cheap on paper. Why doesn't it feel that way? SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - South Korea can still look remarkably cheap to someone arriving from New York or Berlin. For Koreans earning and spending in won, it increasingly does not feel that way. Years of rising prices have made more spending discretionary as household incomes struggle to keep pace, squeezing what remains after necessities. Yet for visitors earning dollars or euros, a restaurant bill or cab fare in Seoul can still look like a bargain. A three-course meal for two at a mid-range
• Chinese snacks spread across Korean shelves, drawing curiosity and scrutiny SEOUL, August 12 (AJP) - Step into an unmanned snack shop in Seoul and the shelves resemble a miniature world market — with China taking an outsized share, from mala konjac and latiao to spicy seafood and candy. The novelty is drawing shoppers, but also closer scrutiny as Korean regulators flag bacterial contamination, high sodium and labeling problems in some imported products. The Chinese packaged fish snack, bought from an unmanned store in downtown Seoul, looked as forceful as its sm

AJP Focus

• Korea takes AI race from chips to chillers SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) - An AI agent on a laptop or smartphone may appear almost weightless. Behind every prompt, however, sit warehouses of processors and memory running around the clock — consuming enormous amounts of electricity and generating heat that must be removed before the machines can keep thinking. For South Korea, already a powerhouse in the memory chips feeding those machines, that physical burden is becoming the next AI opportunity. Samsung Electronics has already put mone
• Korea's penny stocks face delisting clock SEOUL, August 13 (AJP) — A little kindness can go a long way, but on South Korea's penny-stock boards this week, investors were wondering whether sympathy could go far enough to save a company from delisting. Online investment communities filled with anxious questions, angry recriminations and the occasional speculative wager after the Korea Exchange placed dozens of stocks under regulatory watch Wednesday in the first broad application of tougher rules aimed at pushing chronically we