Aju Press - Aasia News Hub

Journalist

Kim Dong-young김동영

ReporterSamsung Biologics, CJ CheilJedang, LG Chem, Celltrion, Naver, Krafton, Nexon, Hyundai Mobis etc. & energy, game, food, bio, petrochemical, AI

Kim Dong-young is a bilingual journalist at AJU Press (AJP), covering Korean tech, energy, and bio/pharma.
He reports from the field at events like CES and APEC, runs AJP's YouTube channels,
and is pursuing a master's at Sogang's MOT program. "I try everything in this AI era that can improve yet preserve the facts. Journalism still serves as my core."

Latest by Kim Dong-young

Amorepacific chief's younger daughter weds in private Seoul ceremony SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - The younger daughter of Suh Kyung-bae, chairman of South Korea's Amorepacific Group, married on Sunday, drawing fresh attention to the cosmetics empire's third-generation succession. Suh Ho-jeong, 30, exchanged vows at 6:30 p.m. at the Shilla Hotel in central Seoul's Jangchung-dong, according to business sources. The groom is an investment and management consultant at a foreign firm who has studied abroad, and the couple were introduced through acquaintances. The wedding was held behind closed doors, attended only by immediate family and close friends. Born in 1995, Suh graduated from Cornell University's hotel administration program before joining Osulloc, a tea-and-lifestyle affiliate of the group, as an entry-level employee last year. She now works in product development and marketing on the brand's PD team. Long kept out of the corporate spotlight, Suh has emerged as a figure of interest since her Osulloc debut and a series of share gifts. Her father transferred Amorepacific Holdings stock to her in 2021 and 2023, then handed over 190,000 Amorepacific shares worth about 30 billion won ($19.63 million) in late February to help cover her gift-tax bill. The group's third generation comprises Suh and her elder sister, Suh Min-jeong, who joined Amorepacific in 2017 but has been on extended leave since 2023, leaving the eventual succession picture unsettled. 2026-06-21 14:25:44
S.Korean savers shift from insurance to ETFs as stock rally lures bank money SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - A pronounced "money move" is unfolding inside South Korea's banks as savers abandon insurance products in favor of exchange-traded funds (ETFs), drawn by a buoyant stock market that has reshaped where households park their cash. ETF sales at the country's five major commercial banks - KB Kookmin, Shinhan, Hana, Woori and NH Nonghyup - reached 56.73 trillion won ($37.12 billion) in the first months of this year, about 10.8 times the 5.21 trillion won recorded a year earlier, according to financial industry data on Sunday. Sales commissions surged to 491.8 billion won from 44.1 billion won. Bancassurance, the insurance products banks sell on behalf of insurers, moved in the opposite direction. New sales slipped 4.2 percent to 7.97 trillion won, while commission income fell to 134.8 billion won from 292.6 billion won. The reversal marks a sharp turn for bancassurance, which had long thrived on tax breaks, guaranteed minimum returns and yields exceeding ordinary deposits. Its annual sales climbed steadily to 15.66 trillion won in 2025, dwarfing ETF sales that lagged well behind through 2024. That balance flipped as domestic equities staged a record-breaking run from the latter half of last year, eroding appetite for savings-type insurance that ties up money for years. Last year's ETF sales of 22.06 trillion won ran about 1.4 times ahead of bancassurance. The momentum has intensified in 2026. ETF sales swelled 54 percent in May to 15.31 trillion won amid heightened KOSPI volatility, while bancassurance sales sank 43 percent over the same month. Banks are themselves courting ETF business to stem a larger outflow of deposits to brokerages, since proceeds from ETF redemptions flow back into bank accounts, keeping the money within their walls. A separate factor weighing on insurance has been weaker demand for dollar-denominated policies, which regulators flagged early this year over the risk of mis-selling. 2026-06-21 13:55:32
South Korea steps in as Trump pulls back from arming allies SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - South Korea is fast emerging as a major weapons supplier to the world, seizing an opening created as U.S. President Donald Trump retreats from Washington's traditional security guarantees and presses allies to defend themselves, Politico reported. The paper said that the shift echoes the 1969 Nixon Doctrine, when then-President Richard Nixon told Asian allies to take charge of their own defense and pulled about 20,000 American troops from the peninsula. Threat level rising, South Korea poured money into a homegrown arms industry, licensing and reverse-engineering foreign weapons. That gamble has matured into a global business. South Korea now ranks as the world's ninth-largest arms exporter and stands second only to the United States as a supplier to NATO's European members. Combined revenue at its four defense champions — Hanwha Group, Hyundai Rotem, LIG Nex1 and Korea Aerospace Industries — is projected at about $37 billion this year, nearly quadruple the 2021 figure. Two wars, in Ukraine and Iran, have stoked urgent demand, while many longtime U.S. allies have bristled at Trump's tariffs, broken treaties and blunt insults. As Politico put it, "global instability... may be bad for the world. But in South Korea, it's good for business." Poland anchors the surge, signing a $13.7 billion deal for K2 tanks, rocket launchers and artillery after Russia's invasion of Ukraine left jittery Eastern European governments scrambling to rearm. Buyers prize Seoul's swift delivery — a reflex of the "bbali-bbali," or hurry-hurry, culture — along with low prices and willing technology transfers. South Korea has also won fans with its combat credibility, underscored when LIG Nex1's Cheongung-II air-defense system reportedly downed 29 of 30 targets over the United Arab Emirates during the war with Iran. Still, the climb toward Seoul's goal of becoming the world's fourth-largest exporter by 2030 is steepening, as European nations rebuild their own defense industries and Japan eases its arms-export curbs, sharpening the competition ahead. 2026-06-21 11:07:41
Lee reshuffles Cheong Wa Dae staff, names ex-Yonhap chief as communications adviser SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Sunday named Seong Ghi-hong, a former chief executive of Yonhap News Agency, as his senior secretary for public communications, part of a reshuffle of his top Blue House aides at the start of his administration's second year. Han Chan-sik, a former attorney at the law firm Kim & Chang, was appointed senior secretary for civil affairs, while Kim Kyung-ja, an adjunct professor at Woosuk University and a former senior vice president of the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions, was named senior secretary for social affairs. Presidential chief of staff Kang Hoon-sik also announced the appointments of Kang Gun-jark, a member of the presidential future defense strategy committee, as first deputy chief of the National Security Office, and Song Ki-ho, currently the office's economic security secretary, as third deputy chief. Kang said Seong was "a veteran journalist of 30 years who combines a reporter's instinct for the field with the balance and judgment of an editorial leader," adding that the new adviser would help the government communicate its responses and achievements to the public. The reshuffle came as Lee entered the second year of his five-year term after taking office in June last year. 2026-06-21 10:59:30
Korean won hits weakest June level since 1998 crisis SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - The South Korean won has averaged more than 1,520 per dollar so far in June, its weakest monthly level since the Asian financial crisis nearly three decades ago, as a firmer dollar and persistent foreign equity outflows weighed on the currency. The won averaged 1,521 per dollar through June 19, based on weekly closing prices at 3:30 p.m., according to the Bank of Korea's Economic Statistics System. That marks the highest monthly average since February 1998, when the rate stood at 1,626.7 during the height of the crisis, and sits about 70 won above the 1,453.3 average of March 2009, the worst stretch of the global financial crisis. The currency has held above 1,500 for several consecutive sessions since June 15, when it closed at 1,500.8 — the longest such run since the crisis-era stretch from late December 1997 to March 1998. Analysts attribute the slide to a mix of factors. The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, climbed as high as 101.123 on June 19, its strongest in about 13 months, after the Federal Reserve struck a hawkish tone at its June 18 meeting and flagged lingering inflation concerns. Foreign investors have compounded the pressure, dumping a large volume of Korean shares this year even as their ownership share paradoxically rose to 41.03 percent by June 19 from 36.27 percent at the end of last year — a sign that the stocks they hold have rallied sharply. The won's troubles come against a turbulent backdrop. The currency had already breached 1,520 in early April after U.S. President Donald Trump's hardline remarks on Iran rattled markets, while Washington redesignated South Korea to its currency monitoring list in January, citing a current-account surplus that had widened to 5.9 percent of GDP. Stalled working-level talks between Washington and Tehran have added further upward pressure on the rate. 2026-06-21 09:58:02
S.Korea's hypermarkets shed market share as e-commerce, discounters bite SEOUL, June 21 (AJP) - South Korea's hypermarket chains have absorbed the heaviest blow among offline retailers from the rise of e-commerce, with their share of total retail sales sliding to a record low as shoppers migrate online and to deep-discount stores. The country's three big-box operators — E-mart, Lotte Mart and Homeplus — accounted for 7.9 percent of total retail revenue as of April this year, the lowest share on record, according to data from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. The figure is less than half the 17.9 percent recorded in 2020, the year the COVID-19 pandemic struck. Hypermarkets dominated Korean retail at their peak in 2009 and 2010, when their share topped 50 percent and the combined sales of the three chains outstripped those of all department stores, convenience stores and supermarkets nationwide. The format held its lead even after a mandatory store-closure rule took effect in 2012, but the pandemic upended the landscape. In fresh food, once a core strength, fast-delivery e-commerce platforms and lightly regulated wholesale grocers steadily ate into market share, while household goods ceded ground to fixed-price chain Daiso and Chinese players such as AliExpress and Temu. The sector's share has fallen each year since — 15.1 percent in 2021, 13.0 percent in 2022, 12.1 percent in 2023 and 11.0 percent in 2024 — before dropping below 10 percent for the first time last year, to 9.8 percent. Even measured against offline rivals alone, hypermarkets have slipped to third place behind department and convenience stores. The downturn looks set to persist. Homeplus, which once vied with E-mart for the top spot, entered court-led rehabilitation last year and has since shuttered dozens of outlets and shed about 5,000 jobs; with a July 3 deadline to win approval for its restructuring plan, analysts warn the chain could face liquidation if a sale falls through. 2026-06-21 09:25:36
Korea moves to break down data barriers for self-driving AI SEOUL, June 19 (AJP) - South Korea's science ministry has stepped in to ease a chronic data bottleneck holding back the development of self-driving artificial intelligence, issuing the country's first common standards for building and sharing autonomous-driving training data. The Ministry of Science and ICT said on Friday it had published a guideline and specification document allowing industry, academia and research institutes to jointly build and share training data for end-to-end (E2E) self-driving AI. The global autonomous-driving industry is shifting rapidly toward the E2E approach, in which a single AI trained on vast volumes of data handles perception, judgment and control as one integrated process. Leaders such as Waymo in the United States and Baidu in China have been expanding road testing and racing to amass ever-larger training datasets. South Korean firms, by contrast, have built their data in isolation, leaving it hard to share because sensor placement and other specifications differ from vehicle to vehicle. The new guideline covers the full data lifecycle, defining procedures for collection, processing, alignment, correction and labelling, and setting out sensor configurations, storage formats and methods for verifying raw data. It was developed through the multi-ministry project for autonomous driving technology innovation, led by the Institute of Information & Communications Technology Planning & Evaluation, the autonomous-driving project group KADIF and the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. The ministry said it would work with the land ministry to deploy the standards in self-driving test cities building city-scale E2E datasets, refining the guideline as it goes. 2026-06-19 14:48:20
Seoul to release 21 million imported eggs as bird flu squeezes supply SEOUL, June 19 (AJP) - South Korea will channel about 21.12 million imported fresh eggs from the United States and Thailand into the market through next month, the agriculture ministry said, moving to ease a price surge that has strained household budgets. Starting Friday, 1.12 million U.S. eggs will reach shelves at major retailers including E-Mart and Lotte Mart. E-Mart will stock them at all outlets except those on Jeju Island, while Lotte Mart will sell them at 40 stores nationwide. The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said it would funnel at least 4.48 million U.S. and Thai eggs each week to large retailers first, before routing supplies through smaller distributors to neighborhood bakeries, corner shops and other small businesses. The push follows a slide in domestic output triggered by last winter's outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza, which forced the culling of laying hens, and by tighter rules on flock density. Daily production this month stood at 47.05 million eggs, up 1.2 percent from the seasonal norm but down 3.3 percent from a year earlier. Since January, the ministry has imported about 10.11 million fresh eggs through the Korea Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, comprising 6.74 million from the United States and 3.37 million from Thailand. It plans to diversify supply lines by bringing in Brazilian eggs for the first time. The ministry will also extend a tariff-rate quota on processed egg products to the end of the year from this month and double the eligible volume to 8,000 tons. The scheme cuts duties on selected goods by up to 40 percentage points, giving importers room to offer cheaper products. "As the number of laying hens recovers, egg output is expected to climb from next month," the ministry said, "but it will take some time for the recovery to translate into actual market supply and price stability." Daily output is projected to rebound to last year's level of about 49 million eggs in July. 2026-06-19 11:40:20
LG CNS, Doosan forge sweeping AI and robotics alliance SEOUL, June 19 (AJP) - LG CNS announced it has agreed to a broad business partnership with Doosan spanning artificial intelligence, robotics, data centers and cloud computing, as South Korea's industrial giants race to commercialize so-called physical AI. The two firms signed a memorandum of understanding on Thursday at LG Science Park in Seoul's Magok district, with LG CNS CEO Hyun Shin-kyun and Doosan President Yoo Seung-woo among the executives present. Under the deal, the partners will set up a joint task force within a month of signing to combine their core strengths and draw up detailed operating plans, LG CNS said. The AI tie-up will build on AgenticWorks, LG CNS's enterprise agentic-AI platform, to bolster Doosan's own capabilities and map out a business roadmap, the company said. Cooperation in robotics is also under review, while the two sides will explore introducing hydrogen fuel cells into LG CNS data centers and weaving digital-twin technology into manufacturing to extend equipment lifecycles. The agreement deepens ties forged earlier this month, when Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's Seoul visit yielded physical-AI partnerships with both groups. LG CNS was tapped to upgrade robot platforms for LG's manufacturing and logistics sites, while Doosan agreed to expand cooperation with Nvidia across energy, electronic materials and robotics. "We will combine LG CNS's unmatched AX and RX capabilities with the technological strength of a powerful partner in Doosan to generate synergy," Hyun said, vowing to move quickly from AI-driven equipment forecasting on factory floors to robot-led industrial innovation. 2026-06-19 09:09:47
Hormuz to reopen, but the war has redrawn Asia's energy map for good SEOUL, June 18 (AJP) - The Strait of Hormuz may reopen within the next 60 days under a U.S.-Iran deal, and oil prices have already retreated close to prewar levels. But Asia's energy order will not return to what it was. The war taught the region a costly lesson: dependence on a single supplier and a single shipping lane is no longer a risk worth taking. Brent crude fell below $79 a barrel on Thursday, its lowest level since early March and nearly 40 percent below its wartime peak, as traders priced in the return of more than 100 stranded tankers and the gradual resumption of Iranian exports. Cheaper oil, however, is not the same as restored confidence. The blockade of Hormuz — which the International Energy Agency (IEA) described as the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market — showed how easily a single chokepoint could be weaponized. That realization may prove the war's most enduring legacy. The IEA this week cut its 2026 oil demand growth forecast by 700,000 barrels per day to 1.1 million barrels per day after deliveries plunged by 5 million barrels per day during the second quarter. Global inventories also fell sharply, shedding 143 million barrels in May after a 74 million barrel decline in April. "Despite the significant reductions in demand for crude oil and refined products, the buffers in the system continue to erode at a record pace," the agency said. Yet the most striking lesson was how resilient the global economy proved. The pain never approached the scale of the 1973 oil embargo, the 1980 Iran-Iraq war or even the disruption that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Many Asian and European importers entered the crisis with unusually high inventories after stockpiling fuel throughout 2025. Gulf producers also adapted faster than expected. Saudi Arabia rapidly rerouted exports through its Red Sea port of Yanbu, boosting shipments to roughly 4 million barrels a day from less than 1 million before the war. Meanwhile, producers in the United States, Brazil and Venezuela increased output to offset shortages. Global oil demand fell by an estimated 5 percent in the second quarter, according to the IEA, roughly half the declines recorded during previous major oil shocks. Another powerful buffer emerged from an unlikely source: artificial intelligence. The global race to build data centers fueled investment, trade and stock market gains, cushioning export-driven Asian economies that dominate the semiconductor supply chain. But that protection was distributed unevenly. The war carved a K-shaped divide across Asia. Technology-heavy economies such as South Korea and Taiwan rode record market rallies even as manufacturing-intensive, fuel-importing countries struggled under surging energy costs. Taiwan's economy expanded 13.69 percent in the first quarter, its fastest pace in 39 years, while South Korea's KOSPI surged past the stock markets of London and Toronto by market capitalization. Poorer importers suffered a harsher reality. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka imposed fuel rationing, several governments shut schools and restricted air conditioning, and the United Nations Development Programme estimated that about 8.8 million people across Asia and the Pacific were pushed closer to poverty. China demonstrated another model altogether. Despite cutting imports by roughly 3 million barrels a day, Beijing absorbed the shock by drawing on strategic reserves and relying more heavily on coal and renewable energy without major disruption to industrial activity. Those divergent responses are now hardening into long-term strategy. The IEA said this week the war had permanently changed how governments assess energy security, accelerating a diversification drive that began after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Solar investment alone is projected to reach $365 billion this year, while global coal investment will climb to a 14-year high of $180 billion, nearly 70 percent of it in China. "Diversification of energy sources and supply routes is now a central priority," IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said while releasing the agency's Southeast Asia Energy Outlook. Southeast Asia, he noted, will account for about one-fifth of global energy demand growth over the next decade, second only to India. That instinct to hedge has already become policy. South Korea and Japan, the world's third- and second-largest LNG importers, have agreed to coordinate purchases and strategic stockpiles. Seoul and Taipei are accelerating nuclear restarts, Tokyo is expanding its own nuclear program, and South Korea is pressing Washington to broaden its rights to enrich uranium for civilian purposes. The physical damage may also outlast the ceasefire. The IEA estimates the conflict has delayed a long-awaited wave of global liquefied natural gas supply by at least two years. Repairing Qatar's Ras Laffan complex, the world's largest LNG export facility, could take three to five years, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. But the deepest scar is one of trust. After watching the world's most important energy artery throttled at will, importers are no longer willing to rely on a single guarantor. Instead, they are building capacity at home while diversifying suppliers abroad. Birol summarized the new reality in a warning delivered in Washington earlier this year. "We are dealing with one Hormuz now," he said. "There may be several Hormuz waiting if we fail to diversify." For South Korea, where roughly 99 percent of Middle Eastern crude normally passes through Hormuz, the ceasefire is a relief, not a return to normal. During the war, Seoul accelerated purchases from North America, Australia and Africa while unveiling plans to nearly triple renewable generation capacity to 100 gigawatts by 2030. Hormuz will reopen. The certainty it once carried will not. 2026-06-18 16:01:40