Pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan touts 'Made-in-Pyongyang' smartphones SEOUL, August 22 (AJP) - A report in the Choson Sinbo, a pro-Pyongyang newspaper based in Japan, claims that North Korea's Jindallae Mobile Phone Factory is capable of producing hundreds of thousands of smartphones annually. The factory, located in Pyongyang's Mangyongdae district, was reportedly established in March 2018 and has a total floor area of 6,087 square meters. The report, published Aug. 20, highlights the facility’s output of dozens of types of smart and feature phones, beginning with the domestically designed Jindallae 3 model. North Korean officials described the factory’s precision and productivity as being "very high level," with claims of maintaining Class 10 dust-free conditions for the assembly of LCD touchscreens. The production lines are said to be integrated, covering everything from LCD manufacturing and mainboard assembly to packaging and quality inspection. The factory's production capacity, according to the North Korean e-commerce site Manmulsang, is in the hundreds of thousands of units per year. Despite Pyongyang’s assertions, experts are skeptical about the country's claims of independent smartphone design and production. A 2024 report by Martin Williams of the Crimson Center think tank, published in 38 North, suggested that all smartphones sold in North Korea are manufactured by Chinese companies under original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreements. The report details how Chinese firms handle the basic design and production based on North Korean specifications. The finished products are then branded with North Korean names, suggesting that the country’s domestic production claims are likely exaggerated. North Korea, the report concludes, appears to function more as an assembly and rebranding operation than a full-scale independent manufacturer. 2025-08-22 14:55:13

Korean financial regulator inspects firms hit by ransomware attacks SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - South Korea’s top financial regulator has begun on-site inspections of companies struck by recent ransomware attacks, as concerns mount over the security of consumer data in the country’s financial sector. The Financial Supervisory Service dispatched examiners to SGI Seoul Guarantee, the nation’s leading guarantee insurance provider, and to Welrix F&I Loan, a lending affiliate of Welcome Financial Group, according to industry officials, Thursday. Both companies were targeted by overseas hackers in recent weeks. The attack on SGI Seoul Guarantee last month disrupted parts of its computer systems, prompting what the regulator described as a “comprehensive field inspection.” Investigators are also scrutinizing other Welcome Financial Group subsidiaries for possible fallout from the breach at Welrix F&I Loan. A central question is whether sensitive personal information was exposed. Welrix, which specializes in purchasing and collecting nonperforming loans from Welcome Savings Bank and other lenders, holds data on lower-credit borrowers who could be especially vulnerable if details were leaked. Welcome Financial Group has said that, so far, no personal information has been confirmed compromised. The company maintains the breach stemmed from an employee’s personal computer and affected only meeting materials, not customer data. It also emphasized that major units such as Welcome Savings Bank operate on separate servers untouched by the attack. Still, the Russian hacking group behind the intrusion claimed on the dark web that it had exfiltrated more than one terabyte of internal company files, accusing Welcome Financial of “irresponsibility” in safeguarding critical information. Another group that targeted SGI Seoul Guarantee has warned it will soon release stolen data, citing a lack of resources to review the trove itself. Regulators are expected to examine whether SGI Seoul Guarantee complied with electronic financial supervision requirements. 2025-08-21 16:43:30

[[K-Beauty]] Korean cosmetics manufacturer Cosmax to set up India subsidiary SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - Cosmax, the world’s largest cosmetics manufacturer, said it will establish a subsidiary in Mumbai, India, by the end of 2025, underscoring the company’s ambitions to make India a key pillar of its next stage of global expansion. The South Korean company, a leading provider of original design manufacturing (ODM) services for international brands, outlined the plan during an investor relations meeting in Seoul on Wednesday. Founder and Chairman Lee Kyung-soo described the India venture as part of Cosmax’s “new leap” strategy. A senior Cosmax executive said the move is in its final stages, pointing to the rapid growth of India’s cosmetics industry and the opportunity to leverage Korean skin care expertise in a market of 1.5 billion people. India’s beauty and personal care market was valued at $31.7 billion in 2024, expanding at an average annual rate of 4.7 percent since 2022, according to data from the Korea Cosmetic Industry Institute. Cosmax currently operates in 10 countries, including production hubs in China, the United States and Indonesia. Officials said the company may explore a Middle East presence after launching in India. The company’s strategy increasingly aims to compete with France’s luxury beauty houses through partnerships with global giants such as L’Oréal and Estée Lauder, while advancing its own premium positioning. Chairman Lee stressed that Cosmax’s growth will depend not only on scale but also on building world-class research capabilities and aligning with the most competitive international players. 2025-08-21 14:19:42

South Korea's costly nuclear deal with Westinghouse traces back to 50-year dependency SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - South Korea’s fraught nuclear agreement with Westinghouse Electric of the United States, derided by critics as a “50-year slave contract,” is the culmination of a technological dependency that dates back to the earliest days of the country’s atomic energy program. In the 1970s, South Korea built its nuclear ambitions on American blueprints. The nation’s first reactors were based on designs from Combustion Engineering, a U.S. company that developed the System 80 model. When Westinghouse acquired Combustion Engineering in 2000, the intellectual property rights behind South Korea’s core reactor technology effectively passed into Westinghouse’s hands. At the heart of the current dispute is the APR1400, South Korea’s flagship reactor that it has sought to market abroad as a symbol of its industrial self-reliance. Though Korean engineers spent decades refining the design, the reactor remains rooted in Combustion Engineering’s System 80+, leaving room for Westinghouse to assert intellectual property claims. Those claims came to a head in 2022, after Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the state-owned operator, secured a $17.1 billion contract to build reactors in the Czech Republic. Westinghouse swiftly filed suit in U.S. courts, arguing that the APR1400 could not be exported without its approval because it was derived from Westinghouse-controlled technology. The legal challenge threatened to derail South Korea’s most important nuclear export deal in years, just as Seoul was trying to reassert itself as a global player in the nuclear market. Facing a March 2025 deadline to finalize the Czech contract, Korean negotiators found themselves under enormous pressure. Industry officials say Westinghouse used that urgency to extract concessions. A settlement was reached in January. Under its reported terms, Korea agreed to pay Westinghouse $650 million per reactor for equipment and services, along with $175 million in licensing fees. Westinghouse also secured restrictions on where South Korea can export its reactors and won the right to review future Korean designs. For South Korea, the deal ensures the Czech project moves forward and preserves its credibility as a nuclear exporter. But it also underscores the limits of the country’s independence in an industry it has long touted as a pillar of national strength. “This is the price of building our industry on borrowed technology,” said one energy policy analyst in Seoul on condition of anonymity. “Even after decades of innovation, the original license still determines what Korea can and cannot do.” The controversy has become a flash point in South Korea, where critics argue that early reliance on foreign technology created structural dependencies that have persisted for nearly half a century. Despite technological prowess and a record of safe operations at home, the country remains tethered to intellectual property rights inherited from contracts signed in a very different era. As Seoul pushes to expand its nuclear exports to new markets, the episode is a reminder that choices made decades ago can cast long shadows — sometimes measured not in years, but in generations. 2025-08-21 13:39:27

[[K-Tech]] From 'Lineage' to AI: How NCSOFT is reinventing itself for new gaming era Editor's Note: This article is the 32nd installment in our series on Asia's top 100 companies, exploring the strategies, challenges, and innovations driving the region's most influential corporations. SEOUL, August 21 (AJP) - In the late 1990s, when South Korea’s internet cafes were still filled with teenagers battling each other in primitive shooting games, a young software engineer, Kim Taek-jin, was quietly building something different. Kim, who had helped develop one of the country’s first word processors for the Korean language, launched a role-playing game called Lineage in 1998. It was South Korea’s first massively multiplayer online role-playing game — a virtual world where tens of thousands of players could gather at once, form alliances, and wage endless battles. The release transformed the country’s fledgling gaming industry and turned NCSOFT, the company Kim founded a year earlier, into a household name. More than a quarter century later, Lineage and its sequels still account for most of the company’s revenue. That dependence has been both a blessing and a burden. NCSOFT remains one of South Korea’s largest game publishers, but as the industry pivots toward mobile titles, console blockbusters and emerging platforms like the metaverse, it faces the challenge of reinventing itself while holding onto its most loyal fans. The company’s latest earnings, released this month, reflect that delicate balance. Revenue in the April-to-June quarter rose to 382.4 billion won, or about $284 million. Operating profit surged 71 percent from a year earlier, to 15.1 billion won. But foreign exchange losses pushed NCSOFT into the red, with a net loss of 36 billion won. The numbers underline a paradox: NCSOFT remains highly profitable when it leans on Lineage, but its long-term ambitions hinge on proving it can do more. In recent months, Kim has reorganized the company to prepare for that future. He stepped into a co-chief executive role alongside Park Byung-moo, who now manages business operations and acquisitions, freeing Kim to focus on the creative side of game development. NCSOFT has also invested in overseas studios in Sweden and Poland, betting that fresh talent can help diversify its catalog. Seven new titles are planned by 2026, including Aion 2, a sequel to one of its earlier hits, and Cinder City, a massively multiplayer tactical shooter that has already been delayed. Perhaps the company’s boldest move lies in artificial intelligence. NCSOFT has been rolling out Varco Studio, a proprietary generative AI tool that can build avatars, synthesize voices and automatically generate storylines. The company even spun off an AI subsidiary to accelerate development. Executives say the technology could dramatically reduce the time and cost of producing new games. “We’re at an inflection point,” said one Seoul-based industry analyst. “If NCSOFT can translate its AI investments into compelling new titles, it has a chance to break out of the Lineage shadow. If not, it risks being seen as a one-franchise company.” For Kim, the stakes are personal. At 56, he still sees himself less as a corporate chairman than as a developer. Friends and colleagues describe him as a tinkerer who would rather spend time with designers than board members. In that sense, the dual leadership model — with Park handling the business and Kim shaping the creative vision — reflects not just a corporate strategy but Kim’s own identity. The company’s ambitions are not limited to gaming. It operates a professional baseball team, the NC Dinos, and runs philanthropic programs through the NC Cultural Foundation, which supports education and campaigns against gaming addiction. NCSOFT is also experimenting with blockchain-based games and metaverse-style community platforms, signaling its intention to remain at the forefront of digital culture. Still, challenges abound. NCSOFT competes not only with domestic rivals like Nexon and Netmarble but also with global powerhouses like Blizzard and Riot Games, whose titles dominate esports arenas and streaming platforms. For all its technological prowess, NCSOFT has yet to produce a global cultural phenomenon on the scale of League of Legends or World of Warcraft. Yet in the company’s glassy headquarters south of Seoul, there is quiet confidence. After all, Kim has been here before: trying to convince the world that a small Korean developer could build something players would devote their lives to. In 1998, that gamble reshaped online gaming. The question now is whether NCSOFT can do it again — this time, with artificial intelligence and a new generation of players. 2025-08-21 10:26:46

South Korea launches petrochemical restructuring plan amid global glut SEOUL, August 20 (AJP) - South Korea’s finance chief pledged government support for sweeping cuts in the country’s petrochemical industry, Wednesday, as officials seek to shore up competitiveness in a sector battered by global oversupply. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Koo Yoon-cheol said that 10 major petrochemical companies have agreed to reduce as much as 3.7 million tons of production capacity by the end of the year. The pledge came after the Lee Jae Myung administration convened its first inter-ministerial meeting on industrial competitiveness, held at the government complex in Seoul. Koo criticized domestic producers for ignoring repeated warnings of oversupply and instead expanding facilities during past boom years without moving quickly enough into higher-value products. “Resolving this crisis requires drastic capacity reduction and fundamental competitiveness enhancement, pursued with a do-or-die determination,” he said. Under the plan, participating firms must submit detailed reorganization strategies by the end of 2025, with a focus on scaling back their naphtha cracking operations, the backbone of petrochemical production. Koo pressed companies and their shareholders to put forward binding restructuring plans grounded in “painful self-rescue efforts,” and urged them to begin implementing changes as early as next month. The government said it would provide regulatory easing, tax incentives and financial assistance to companies that commit to restructuring. But Koo warned that firms attempting to delay or avoid the process would be excluded from support programs and could face punitive measures. He cited the shipbuilding industry’s recovery through painful restructuring as a precedent the petrochemical sector should follow. Officials plan to hold regular reviews of the industry’s progress and promised further intervention if needed, with the aim of what Koo described as a “revival” of South Korea’s petrochemical industry. 2025-08-20 15:08:39

S. Korea's presidential office orders probe into Czech nuclear deal with Westinghouse SEOUL, August 19 (AJP) - South Korea’s presidential office on Tuesday ordered an investigation into media reports that state-run energy companies accepted "unfavorable" terms from Westinghouse Electric, the American nuclear technology firm, during negotiations for a multibillion-dollar power plant project in the Czech Republic. Presidential spokeswoman Kang Yu-jung said Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik directed the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to conduct the inquiry after high-level discussions at a morning meeting. The move, she said, was aimed at addressing public concerns about the negotiation process and the fairness of the contract terms. The order followed local media reports that a “global agreement” signed in January between Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, Korea Electric Power Corporation and Westinghouse included sweeping provisions favoring the U.S. firm. Among them were requirements that future Korean-designed nuclear reactors intended for export be verified by Westinghouse, as well as obligations to purchase $650 million worth of equipment and services per reactor and to pay $175 million in technology licensing fees per unit. Kang said the investigation would determine whether the two Korean companies complied with relevant laws and procedures in reaching the agreement and whether they had properly safeguarded national interests in the process. Prime Minister Kim Min-seok told reporters earlier Tuesday that the government had already begun preliminary fact-finding efforts. Critics warn that the terms of the Czech contract could undermine Seoul’s bid to establish itself as an independent nuclear exporter rather than a "junior partner" to U.S. firms. 2025-08-19 17:31:06

Cost overruns push S. Korea's nuclear project in UAE into the red SEOUL, August 19 (AJP) - South Korea’s flagship nuclear power venture in the United Arab Emirates has slipped into the red for the first time, underscoring the financial strains of the multibillion-dollar project once heralded as a cornerstone of Seoul’s ambitions to export nuclear technology. According to Korea Electric Power Corporation’s first-half 2025 financial disclosures released Tuesday, the Barakah nuclear plant posted a cumulative loss of 34.9 billion won, or about $25 million, with its rate of return dipping to negative 0.2 percent. Cumulative profit for the project, which had stood at 435 billion won at the end of 2023, fell to 72.2 billion won late last year before tipping into negative territory this summer. Returns slid from 2 percent in 2023 to 0.3 percent in 2024, before turning negative. The four-reactor complex, South Korea’s first nuclear export project and one of its largest overseas construction contracts at roughly 22.6 trillion won ($16.6 billion), was originally slated for completion in 2020. But repeated delays pushed back full commercial operations until 2024, when the fourth and final unit came online. The setbacks drove up costs and eroded profitability. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, a KEPCO subsidiary responsible for providing operational support, has sought $1 billion in compensation for cost overruns tied to the delays and extra work orders. In May, the company filed an arbitration case with the London Court of International Arbitration to recover part of those expenses. KEPCO, for its part, has stressed that the Barakah project should not be judged solely on immediate financial results. Executives argue that the venture has bolstered South Korea’s reputation as a nuclear exporter and reinforced its domestic nuclear industry, while promising decades of future revenue through dividends from electricity sales over the plant’s 60-year lifespan. Still, the dispute between KEPCO and Korea Hydro highlights unresolved tensions over who will absorb the additional construction costs, estimated at 1.4 trillion won. KEPCO has set aside about 170 billion won in provisions — roughly 10 percent of the disputed sum — as negotiations with Emirati authorities continue. 2025-08-19 14:03:21

Taiwan likely to top South Korea, Japan in per capita GDP SEOUL, August 18 (AJP) - Taiwan's government raised its 2025 economic growth forecast on Monday, projecting the island will become the first of the original "Four Asian Tigers" to reach a per capita gross domestic product of $40,000. Officials now expect the economy to expand by 4.45 percent next year, a significant jump from the previous estimate of 3.1 percent. The Four Asian Tigers — a term for the high-growth economies of South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and Hong Kong — achieved rapid industrialization from the 1960s through the 1990s. Now, Taiwan is poised to surpass regional economic powerhouses like South Korea and Japan in per capita GDP. Taiwan's government reported that the island's GDP surged by 8.01 percent in the second quarter compared to the same period a year ago. That growth rate far outpaced its regional peers: South Korea saw an increase of just 0.5 percent, Singapore's GDP grew by 4.4 percent, and Hong Kong's by 3.1 percent. Officials credited the strong performance to record-breaking exports, which are projected to reach $589.2 billion this year, up 24.04 percent from 2024. This growth is being driven primarily by surging global demand for artificial intelligence-related technology. Taiwan's dominance in the global semiconductor supply chain, led by the TSMC, has made it a key beneficiary of this AI boom. Tsai Yu-tai, the head of the country's statistics directorate, said that despite uncertainties from U.S. tariff policies, the momentum in the AI sector remains strong, prompting companies to continue increasing capital expenditures. By contrast, South Korea, which reached a per capita GDP of $30,000 in 2014, has struggled to move past that benchmark. The country has faced weakened domestic consumption following a martial law crisis last year and export challenges from U.S. tariff pressures. The Korea Development Institute, a state-run think tank, maintained its 2025 growth forecast at a modest 0.8 percent in May, a downgrade from its 1.6 percent projection in February. While the Four Asian Tigers once averaged annual economic growth of more than 7 percent, their paths have diverged in recent decades. Although all four economies had a per capita GDP exceeding $30,000 by 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund's estimates, growth has slowed significantly since the 2000s due to factors like aging populations and shifting global supply chains. 2025-08-18 15:53:49

Samsung's China semiconductor sales decline while US revenue grows SEOUL, August 18 (AJP) - Samsung Electronics posted diverging fortunes in China and the United States in the first half of 2025, as U.S. sanctions weighed on Chinese demand and American technology companies fueled a surge in semiconductor purchases. Samsung's exports to China fell 11 percent year-on-year to 28.79 trillion won (about $20.7 billion), down from 32.35 trillion won a year earlier. Sales to the United States, by contrast, climbed to 33.48 trillion won, overtaking China for the first time since late 2024, when Beijing’s trade-in subsidies briefly lifted demand. Most of Samsung’s China-bound shipments were semiconductors, including LPDDR memory, NAND flash, image sensors and display driver chips, as well as some high-bandwidth memory products. Its on-the-ground operations in China also flagged. Samsung China Semiconductor, which produces NAND flash in Xi’an, reported revenue of 4.41 trillion won and operating profit of 533.6 billion won — both down from the previous year. Shanghai Samsung Semiconductor, its local sales arm, saw revenue fall to 12.35 trillion won from 15.88 trillion won, with operating profit sliding to 193.8 billion won from 232.2 billion won. Analysts attributed the slump to waning trade-in incentives, sluggish consumer recovery and rising competition from Chinese rivals such as ChangXin Memory Technologies, or CXMT. By contrast, U.S. operations delivered robust growth. Samsung Austin Semiconductor, its Texas foundry, reported revenue of 2.3 trillion won, up 5.6 percent, while operating profit soared 65 percent to 423.8 billion won. Samsung Semiconductor Inc., its U.S. sales subsidiary, recorded a 28 percent revenue jump to 22.72 trillion won. The surge was driven by heavy investment from American technology giants in artificial intelligence servers and data centers, as well as rising demand for Samsung’s foundry services. 2025-08-18 11:16:18