Journalist
Kim Dong-young, Im Yoon-seo
davekim0807@ajupress.com
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Homeplus stores fade as Korea's offline retail hunts for a lifeline SEOUL, May 20 (AJP) - Finding a grocery item for an impromptu home dinner has become something of a luxury, said Michelle, an expatriate homemaker in her 40s living in Seorae Village, a quiet enclave in southern Seoul that is home to much of Korea’s French community due to its proximity to the country’s only French international school. Apart from a handful of convenience stores, butcher shops and fruit vendors, the neighborhood’s only meaningful grocery option is a Homeplus supermarket whose shelves are increasingly dominated by tissues, detergents and whatever inventory remains. "I walked around the neighborhood for more than half an hour to buy a carton of eggs," she said. "I gave up on finding spaghetti sauce." The affluent Seocho district neighborhood has seen more than three grocery stores shut down in recent years, leaving Homeplus as the area’s last sizable brick-and-mortar supermarket. Weekend checkout lines regularly stretch across the store, while delivery orders can take hours. But even there, signs of retreat are becoming difficult to ignore. Cashiers have been reduced to a single counter, and delivery staff have all but disappeared. At the retailer's branch in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, the basement floor once occupied by cosmetics chains Olive Young and Nature Republic now sits vacant after both tenants pulled out. The pork counter labeled "Handon" — domestic pork — displays wooden cutting boards instead of meat. Ceramic bowls sweat with condensation beside packs of marinated bulgogi, while kitchen scissors rest awkwardly among refrigerated chicken trays. Frying pans are stacked in the eggs-and-tofu aisle. In the liquor section, beer has vanished entirely. Only zero-alcohol versions of Hite and Terra beer remain alongside slow-moving whisky and traditional liquors. Soju is nowhere to be found. The scene tells a sharper story than any balance sheet. Homeplus, South Korea's second-largest hypermarket operator, is bleeding cash under court-led rehabilitation proceedings even after agreeing to sell its supermarket arm, Homeplus Express, to NS Shopping, an affiliate of Harim Group, for around 120 billion won ($79 million). The proceeds from the sale are not expected to arrive until late June, and the company said earlier this week that 37 of its 104 hypermarkets have suspended operations since May 10. Only 67 stores remain open. Local reports say April salaries went unpaid, while payroll due Thursday for May is also unlikely to be met. Homeplus has requested a short-term bridge loan from its largest creditor, Meritz Financial Group, using the proceeds from the Express sale as collateral. But negotiations have reportedly stalled as Meritz demands joint guarantees from owner MBK Partners and company management, citing potential breach-of-trust risks should the rehabilitation collapse. "Without resolving wage arrears and unpaid supplier bills, it is extremely difficult to sustain the rehabilitation process," Homeplus said in a statement. "If the remaining 67 stores are also forced to close, continuing rehabilitation proceedings will no longer be feasible." The picture beyond Homeplus is hardly any brighter. Data from South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy show sales at large discount chains plunged 15.2 percent in March from a year earlier, marking the sector’s eighth consecutive quarter of decline since the second quarter of 2024. Smaller-format supermarket chains, known locally as SSMs, saw sales fall 8.6 percent. Online retail, by contrast, expanded 8.1 percent and now accounts for 60.6 percent of all major retail sales. The hypermarket sector's share has shrunk to just 8.1 percent, down sharply from 15.1 percent in 2021. The collapse in consumer trust toward Coupang following last year's data breach briefly dented e-commerce momentum, but analysts say the damage inflicted on offline retail after years of online migration has become structural rather than cyclical. Single- and two-person households — once the core customer base for chains like Homeplus — increasingly prefer smaller, faster and app-based purchases over large weekly shopping trips. Rivals that recognized the shift early are beginning to pull away. Emart, South Korea's largest discount chain, posted a first-quarter operating profit of 178.3 billion won, its strongest first-quarter performance in 14 years after converting major stores into experience-focused "Starfield Market" complexes. Lotte Mart, benefiting in part from Homeplus’ troubles, lifted domestic operating profit by 30.9 percent through tighter promotions and a heavier grocery focus. Convenience-store chains are pushing in the opposite direction — outward. GS25 and CU launched 24-hour delivery services through Coupang Eats this week, filling the final overnight gap in their nationwide quick-commerce networks. Meanwhile, Daiso expanded same-day delivery coverage to all 25 districts of Seoul on May 14, effectively transforming its 1,600 stores into urban micro-fulfillment hubs. Even Lotte Mart is accelerating investment in logistics infrastructure through its Zetta grocery app and an automated fulfillment center in Busan developed with Britain's Ocado, scheduled to begin operations later this year. The common thread is increasingly clear: offline space alone no longer pays the rent. The survivors are reinventing stores as experience venues, logistics hubs or rapid-delivery nodes — anything that offers a function a smartphone screen cannot. Homeplus, by contrast, is running out of time to decide what it wants to become. Supplier arrears alone are estimated at around 200 billion won, exceeding the cash expected from the sale of Homeplus Express. Even if Meritz ultimately agrees to extend emergency funding, industry observers say the money would buy only weeks, not a turnaround. For now, the empty shelves in Hwaseong stand as a reminder of what happens when a retail giant stops being a destination and becomes, briefly, a showroom for whatever stock remains. 2026-05-20 15:11:06 -
Kakao union wins strike mandate as Korean tech labor unrest spreads SEOUL, May 20 (AJP) - Unionized workers at Kakao and four of its affiliates voted overwhelmingly in favor of industrial action, clearing the way for what would be the first joint strike in the South Korean tech giant's history and adding to a swelling wave of labor unrest sweeping the country's chip and platform industries. The Kakao branch of the Koren Federation of Chemical and Textile, and Food Workers Unions announced Wednesday all five affiliates — Kakao, Kakao Pay, Kakao Enterprise, DKTechin and XLGames — backed the strike in ballots that closed by 11 a.m. The announcement came at a rally in front of Pangyo Station, just south of Seoul, where the company is headquartered. "All five entities passed the vote in favor, and now that we have secured the legal right to industrial action, we will share our plans for the fight ahead," a union spokesperson announced. The dispute reached the strike stage after mediation talks at the Gyeonggi Regional Labor Relations Commission collapsed last week for four affiliates, while a separate session for the headquarters was postponed. At the heart of the standoff is Kakao's performance bonus framework. The company paid out bonuses ranging from 3 to 9 percent of annual salary in February after posting record earnings last year, but the union is pushing for a structured payout tied to a fixed share of operating profit, alongside stock options for long-tenured staff. The union's grievances have been compounded by Kakao's sale of AXZ, the operator of legacy portal Daum, to AI startup Upstage — a deal the union has condemned as a reversal of earlier promises on employment security. The Kakao vote lands amid a broader reckoning over pay across South Korea's technology backbone. A strike involving some 50,000 Samsung Electronics workers is set to begin Thursday after wage talks broke down, with the union demanding performance bonuses equivalent to 15 percent of operating profit and the removal of payout caps. The pressure traces back to SK Hynix, which scrapped its bonus ceiling in September 2025 and tied payouts to 10 percent of operating profit — a benchmark that has since triggered escalating demands from Samsung Biologics, Hyundai Motor and LG Uplus unions, some seeking as much as 30 percent. Industry watchers warn that if such fixed bonus practices spread from semiconductors into the wider IT sector, companies may lose the flexibility to weather shifting business cycles — a prospect that puts Kakao's coming days at the center of a far larger debate. 2026-05-20 14:46:48 -
LG CNS pushes AI-powered smart factory platform into North America SEOUL, May 20 (AJP) - LG CNS announced it has stepped up efforts to expand its artificial intelligence-driven smart factory business in North America, positioning its proprietary Factova platform as a gateway for small and mid-sized manufacturers seeking to automate production lines. The IT services arm of South Korea's LG Group said Wednesday that it was the only Korean firm to exhibit at IoT Tech Expo 2026 in San Jose, California, held from Monday to Tuesday, an event that draws about 8,000 industry professionals and roughly 200 global technology and manufacturing companies. This year's lineup included IBM, SAP and Deloitte as exhibitors, with Nvidia and Schneider Electric featured as conference speakers. At the booth, LG CNS showcased Factova MES, a modular manufacturing execution system that uses AI to collect and analyze shop-floor data in real time, alongside Factova Control, an equipment integration solution already deployed across more than 100,000 machines at manufacturing sites in Korea and abroad. The company said the tools cut inefficiencies in production and enable predictive maintenance by flagging anomalies in motor current, temperature and vibration before failures occur. LG CNS also unveiled AI offerings tailored for high-precision industries such as semiconductors, displays, aerospace and medical devices, along with a Gen AI safety and environment service that lets field workers report incidents through smartphone photos and voice memos for automatic logging and response guidance. "Backed by smart factory expertise and AX capabilities accumulated at large-scale manufacturing sites, we are accelerating our push into the North American market," said Shin Jae-hoon, head of LG CNS' smart factory division, adding that the company aims to bring AI-driven factory intelligence within reach of small and mid-sized manufacturers. 2026-05-20 10:36:29 -
S. Korea launches cyber breach probe panel ahead of law SEOUL, May 19 (AJP) - South Korea's Ministry of Science and ICT launched a statutory committee empowered to investigate major cyberattacks, moving to shore up the country's defenses against an escalating wave of digital intrusions. The cyber breach investigation committee held its inaugural meeting on Tuesday, marking the formal stand-up of a body created under a revised Information and Communications Network Act passed in response to a string of high-profile breaches last year. The urgency behind the move is hard to overstate. Breaches at top mobile carriers SK Telecom and KT, along with incidents at Lotte Card and e-commerce platform Yes24, exposed millions of South Koreans' personal data in 2025 alone — a sobering streak that rattled confidence in a country long regarded as a global IT leader. Once fully operative, the committee can initiate ex officio investigations into serious incidents — even without a company filing a report — when evidence of a breach is clear or significant public harm is at risk. The revised law is not scheduled to take effect until Oct. 1, but the ministry moved up the committee's launch to build out a public-private response framework in advance, allowing the body to function in an advisory capacity in the interim. The 13-member panel draws on academic experts and private-sector security professionals alongside specialists from the Korea Internet & Security Agency, the Financial Security Institute, and the National Security Research Institute. Members with confirmed ties to companies under investigation will be barred from participating, the ministry said. "We will do our best to effectively respond to cyberattacks by combining private-sector expertise with the government's public mandate," Vice Minister Ryu Je-myung said at the meeting, where attendees also discussed AI-driven security threats and avenues for deeper cooperation between industry and the state. 2026-05-19 16:59:08 -
South Korea launches AI humanoid project as Asia's bipedal race intensifies SEOUL, May 19 (AJP) - South Korea has launched a five-year, state-led drive to develop a homegrown artificial intelligence (AI)-powered humanoid platform, joining a broader Asian race to commercialize bipedal robots, even as the country's largest factories teeter on the brink of a paralyzing strike. The Ministry of Science and ICT held a meeting at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) in Seoul on Monday, the starting point for what officials describe as a so-called "sovereign humanoid" platform worth 50.4 billion won ($33.4 million). The platform, dubbed the "K-Moonshot" initiative, will draw 35.4 billion won from state coffers and 15 billion won from private investors and partners through 2030. The KIST will lead a consortium that includes LG Electronics, LG Energy Solution, and KAIST. The humanoid will be built on KAPEX, a platform developed domestically by KIST, with LG Electronics developing a mass-production model and LG Energy Solution supplying solid-state batteries. More than 20 units will be deployed in care settings for field trials. "This project is a starting point for building South Korea's flagship AI humanoid platform by integrating AI, humanoid robotics, batteries, mass-production technology, and demonstration capabilities," said Kim Seong-su, director general for the office of R&D policy at the ministry. "We will do everything we can to ensure South Korea plays a leading role in the global AI humanoid market," he added. The initiative comes as Kia President and CEO Song Ho-sung used investor roadshows in Hong Kong and Singapore last month to sharpen the commercial case for Boston Dynamics' Atlas humanoid. Song reportedly told investors that Kia would deploy Atlas at its U.S. plant in Georgia in 2029, following an initial rollout at the Hyundai Motor Group's Metaplant America in 2028. Atlas will first handle physically demanding processes before being deployed to overseas factories with similar layouts. China and Japan, Asia's two largest economies, are pursuing starkly different humanoid strategies. China is doubling down on scale, as Hangzhou-based Unitree Robotics filed in March for a 4.2 billion yuan Shanghai IPO after shipping about 5,500 humanoids in 2025, according to its prospectus. UBTech Robotics plans to ramp production of humanoid robots to 5,000 units in 2026 and 10,000 in 2027. Leju Robotics opened a 10,000-unit-capacity factory in Guangdong in late March. Japan, by contrast, leans on its precision-components heritage and a safety-first commercialization path. Honda's P2 humanoid was named an IEEE Milestone in April, while Toyota has steered its humanoid research toward elder care and household environments rather than industrial-scale deployment. Kawasaki Heavy Industries unveiled its Kaleido 9 humanoid at the iREX 2025 exhibition in Tokyo last December, a model suited for disaster response. Tokyo will also host the inaugural Asian edition of the Humanoids Summit, an annual technology conference dedicated to advancing humanoid robotics, next week. In the meantime, South Korea's humanoid ambitions are unfolding against a tense labor backdrop. Samsung Electronics' largest union has threatened an 18-day strike from Thursday, with as many as 50,000 workers expected to walk out amid disputes over wages and performance bonuses following massive profits driven by an unprecedented artificial intelligence (AI)-driven semiconductor supercycle. The Suwon District Court on Monday partially granted Samsung's injunction request but stopped short of banning the strike. Even more hostile, unionized workers at automaker Hyundai Motor, meanwhile, declared that "not a single robot" would enter the workplace without a labor-management agreement, framing Atlas as a direct threat to jobs. Whether the K-Moonshot initiative closes that gap may hinge less on engineering than on whether Korean factories can absorb humanoids without triggering the kind of confrontation now playing out at the electronics giant's main plant in Suwon. 2026-05-19 16:22:50 -
Hyundai Mobis hosts Silicon Valley robotics forum with record turnout SEOUL, May 19 (AJP) - Hyundai Mobis held its fifth annual Mobis Mobility Day in Sunnyvale, California, drawing a record crowd of about 400 attendees as the South Korean auto parts maker pushes into robotics and physical AI amid a broader shift away from its traditional mobility focus. The event, held Monday local time, drew more than double the turnout of the previous year, reflecting mounting interest from local startups, automakers, and investors in the company's expanding technology agenda. Robotics and physical AI dominated the agenda, with presentations from staff at Hyundai Mobis' North American research center covering autonomous driving, software-defined vehicles, and electrification. The company also shared its robotics investment and R&D strategy, while holding in-depth discussions with automaker representatives on the back of recent order wins tied to Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant America coming online. The event also served as a barometer of shifting sentiment in Silicon Valley, where investor attention has moved beyond IT and semiconductors toward companies with core technologies in emerging sectors such as robotics and AI hardware. Hyundai Mobis said it plans to host an additional Mobis Mobility Day in Asia in the second half of this year, extending its open innovation program — previously focused on North America and Europe — to scout promising startups in robotics and automotive semiconductors across the region. 2026-05-19 11:43:02 -
Pulmuone logs record Q1 on overseas turnaround SEOUL, May 15 (AJP) - South Korean food maker Pulmuone reported its strongest-ever first-quarter results, lifted by steady gains at home and a long-awaited turnaround at its overseas units, particularly in the United States. According to regulatory filings released Friday, revenue climbed 7.2 percent from a year earlier to 850.4 billion won ($566.6 million) in the January to March period, while operating profit surged 68.9 percent to 19 billion won. The company said that its earnings jump was driven by tighter cost controls at home and a sharp improvement in profitability abroad, where the firm's U.S. arm booked its third consecutive quarterly profit since swinging into the black in the second half of last year. Pulmuone's Japan unit cut its losses by more than 40 percent on the year. The food service and distribution division, which supplies industrial cafeterias, military bases, airport lounges and highway rest stops, posted a 10.6 percent rise in sales to 254 billion won. Operating profit in the unit climbed 28.3 percent to 6.1 billion won, with concession and rest-area operations alone growing 17.7 percent on stronger travel demand. Overseas food manufacturing and distribution sales rose 13.8 percent to 189.8 billion won, with the segment swinging to roughly break-even from a 5.3 billion won loss a year earlier. "For overseas operations, we plan to keep up growth through expanded supply to global retail and warehouse club channels and a stronger K-Food portfolio, while sustaining profits on the back of North American cold-chain capabilities," said Kim Jong-heon, head of Pulmuone's management planning office. Shares of Pulmuone ended at 11,020 won per stock, 1.87 percent lower than the day before. 2026-05-15 16:14:32 -
Orion's Q1 operating profit jumps 26% on robust overseas sales SEOUL, May 15 (AJP) - South Korean confectioner Orion announced that its first-quarter operating profit climbed 26 percent from a year earlier to 165.5 billion won ($109.9 million), powered by brisk demand at its overseas subsidiaries. Consolidated revenue rose 16 percent to 930.4 billion won in the January to March period, according to a regulatory filing released Friday. Orion, the country's second-largest snack maker and the original producer of Choco Pie, said overseas units in China, Russia and Vietnam drove the gains. The Russian arm posted a 66.2 percent surge in operating profit to 14.2 billion won as revenue rose 34.7 percent to 90.5 billion won, lifted by expanded capacity for fish-shaped pastries and fresh pies. China revenue jumped 24.8 percent to 409.7 billion won on Lunar New Year demand and stronger pie and potato-snack sales, while operating profit there leapt 42.7 percent to 79.9 billion won. The Vietnam unit logged a 17.9 percent revenue rise to 151.3 billion won on Tet holiday spending and new product launches, and India sales soared 67 percent to 9.8 billion won. Domestic earnings held steady, with revenue inching up 0.4 percent to 283.4 billion won despite sluggish local consumption and rising raw material costs. Orion plans to accelerate capacity expansion in the second half, including a new production line for Poca Chips crisps at home, completion of a third plant in Hanoi, and a doubling of fish-shaped pastry output in Russia alongside construction of a new factory in Tver. "We will expand supply volumes through pre-emptive investment in production and logistics facilities at home and abroad, and further lift our growth momentum in the second half," a Orion spokesperson said. Shares of Orion traded at 139,600 won pert stock at 3:10 p.m., 2.58 percent lower than the day before. 2026-05-15 15:12:41 -
Asia's next harvest held hostage by the drawn-out Hormuz disruption SEOUL, May 15 (AJP) - The Middle East war that began with oil is now squeezing Asia's soil. Nearly three months into the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the disruption that first hit refineries and shipping desks is migrating into rice paddies, urea silos and government budgets across a continent that feeds more than half the world's population. About one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade and roughly 35 to 45 percent of world urea exports normally pass through the narrow Gulf corridor, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Daily tanker transits have collapsed by more than 90 percent since hostilities erupted on Feb. 28, effectively severing Asia's most important agricultural lifeline. The result is a slow-burning crisis with a long tail. Energy prices spiked first. The deeper damage is now reaching the inputs that determine next season's harvest — and the harvest after that. "Agriculture operates within a crop calendar that cannot be postponed," FAO Director-General Qu Dongyu said on May 7 at a ministerial meeting in Rome. "Fertilizers must be applied at specific moments in the crop cycle. If they do not arrive on time, yields are reduced, regardless of what happens later." The FAO estimates that between 1.5 million and 3 million tons of fertilizer trade per month have been delayed since the war began. Middle Eastern granular urea jumped nearly 20 percent in a single week after the initial strikes; by mid-April, urea prices had risen around 52 percent in the United States and 60 percent in Brazil. The World Bank now expects overall fertilizer prices to climb 31 percent this year, with urea potentially up 60 percent against 2025 levels. For Asia, the geography of the shock is unforgiving. The Gulf is not merely an oil supplier but the engine of the region's nitrogen fertilizer supply, with Saudi Arabia ranked as the world's largest urea exporter and Oman among the top five. India, the world's second-largest fertilizer consumer, has felt the squeeze first and hardest. Urea import bids surged from around $510 per ton in February to nearly $950 by April, while domestic production fell from a typical 2.5 million tons a month to roughly 1.5 million tons in March as LNG supplies from Qatar were rerouted, according to government and industry data. New Delhi avoided an outright shortage only by paying premium spot prices — at a cost. The country's fertilizer subsidy bill is now expected to exceed 2 trillion rupees, well above the budgeted level. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has urged farmers to reduce fertilizer use as part of a broader austerity drive to defend the rupee. Bangladesh, where roughly 53 percent of fertilizer imports originate in the Gulf, has shut four of its five domestic fertilizer plants for lack of natural gas feedstock, leaving the country dangerously exposed ahead of its monsoon planting season. The damage extends across Southeast Asia, the world's rice basket. The Philippine Department of Agriculture has warned that rice output could fall by as much as 20 to 50 percent owing to soaring fertilizer and fuel costs, compounded by looming El Niño conditions, with the country now forced to import a potentially record 6.9 million tons of rice this year. "We are currently facing an energy crisis, but we believe that this energy crisis can eventually lead to a food crisis," Senator Francis Pangilinan told a Senate hearing in Manila in April. "And therefore we have to prepare." Rice farmers in Thailand and Vietnam — the world's two largest rice exporters — are scaling back fertilizer use as costs collide with stagnant paddy prices. Indonesia, already heavily reliant on imported urea, has tendered for emergency phosphate cargoes through state-owned Pupuk Indonesia to stabilize domestic supply. The chain reaction reaches into Northeast Asia. About 40 percent of South Korea's urea and ammonia imports — critical raw materials for nitrogen fertilizer — pass through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the Korea International Trade Association. Major Gulf suppliers including Industries Qatar and Saudi Arabia's SABIC Agri-Nutrients have declared force majeure on shipments to Asia. Seoul's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs convened an emergency review in March and has since extended freight and war-risk subsidies for fertilizer importers — limited relief for a country whose grain self-sufficiency hovers near 20 percent, with wheat self-sufficiency at roughly 2 percent. The second-order effects are now coming into focus. Fertilizer applied in narrow planting windows means even a delay of weeks translates directly into smaller harvests. Removing nitrogen can cut wheat yields by more than half; inadequate phosphorus can reduce rice yields by around 30 percent, the FAO has warned. What alarms agronomists most is the lag. Higher food prices grab headlines, but the structural damage accumulates quietly — thinner farmer margins, depleted soil fertility, sliding productivity and a multi-year drag on output. The FAO projects tightened global food supplies through the second half of 2026 and into 2027. The U.N. Development Programme estimates that a prolonged disruption could push 8.8 million people across Asia-Pacific into poverty and subtract between $97 billion and $299 billion from regional output. The shock spreads beyond food. Gulf shipments also carry sulfur — vital for phosphate fertilizers, mining and metallurgy — along with methanol and monoethylene glycol, key feedstocks for the plastics, textiles and packaging that anchor Asian manufacturing supply chains. China has responded by expanding export controls on nitrogen and phosphate fertilizers to protect domestic supply. Others have fewer options. For now, Asia's grain silos remain comparatively full, cushioned by last year's strong harvests and FAO food price readings that have risen only modestly. That buffer will not last if the war drags into the autumn planting season. "This is not only a geopolitical crisis," Qu said in Rome. "It is a disruption at the core of the global agri-food system." 2026-05-15 14:47:27 -
AI Boom and Hormuz Crisis Create Diverging Economic Trends in Asia The booming artificial intelligence (AI) sector and the blockade of the Hormuz Strait are sharply dividing the economic landscape in Asia. While semiconductor powerhouses South Korea and Taiwan are experiencing unprecedented growth, manufacturing-heavy countries like India, Thailand, and the Philippines are suffering from a historic oil price shock. Economists describe this phenomenon as an "Asian K-shaped recovery," where the benefits of the AI boom and the pains of fuel shortages are moving in opposite directions within the same region. The ongoing conflict between the U.S. and Israel against Iran has effectively closed the Hormuz Strait, exacerbating the widening gap between these two economic trajectories. The upper curve is dominated by semiconductor giants. Taiwan's GDP grew by 13.69% in the first quarter, marking its highest growth in 39 years. The Taiwanese stock market has risen to become the sixth largest globally, surpassing Canada. South Korea's KOSPI has surged nearly 80% this year, achieving the best performance among major global indices. South Korea has now overtaken the UK to become the seventh-largest stock market in the world, valued at $4.04 trillion. Six of the world's top ten stock markets are now in Asia, as investors begin to prioritize AI over geopolitical concerns. This shift is reflected in record operating profits for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix in the first quarter. Samsung's market capitalization has surpassed $1 trillion, while Taiwan's TSMC accounts for over 40% of the market capitalization of the Taiwanese stock market. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) projects that the global AI market will grow to $4.8 trillion by 2033, approximately 25 times larger than in 2023. This indicates that the semiconductor supercycle is solidifying into a new industrial paradigm. In stark contrast, the economic outlook for countries in southern and western Asia is grim. In the Philippines, where over 36% of the consumer price index (CPI) is linked to fuel, gasoline prices have exceeded 100 pesos (about $5.81) per liter. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) is caught in a dilemma over whether to raise interest rates to curb inflation or keep them steady to protect growth. The Manila government has even introduced a four-day workweek to reduce fuel demand. Thailand is facing a nationwide fuel shortage, and the Pakistani government has urged cricket fans to watch matches at home to conserve gasoline. Such administrative measures, typically unimaginable, are now being implemented. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that approximately 8.8 million people in the Asia-Pacific region are at risk of falling into poverty due to the war, which could reduce regional GDP by 0.3 to 0.8 percentage points. Households near the poverty line are being exposed to soaring fuel and food prices, shaking the social safety net. At the center of this divergence is the competition for heavy and medium crude oil, which is crucial for refining margins and underpins Middle Eastern exports. While the U.S. is the world's largest oil producer, most of its output is light shale oil, leading Asian refiners to engage in fierce bidding for non-Middle Eastern sour crude oil that bypasses the Hormuz Strait. The competition among South Korea, China, and Japan for the same quantities is intensifying, causing premiums to rise sharply. Jang Tae-hoon, a senior researcher at the Korea Energy Economics Institute, stated, "Unless a reasonable and effective resolution to the war is reached that can persuade shipowners and insurers, it will be extremely difficult for oil prices to return to pre-war levels in the long term." He added, "If the conflict continues, competition for crude oil outside the Middle East will become inevitable, with China and Japan also bidding for the same quantities." As of April 14, Brent crude was trading at around $106 per barrel. The number of vessels transiting the Hormuz Strait has plummeted from an average of 135 before the war to about 18. The World Bank reported that Brent crude prices surged by approximately 65% as of the end of March, marking the largest monthly increase on record. However, the benefits of the AI boom are not evenly distributed among the winning groups. The labor union representing about 30,000 members in Samsung Electronics' semiconductor division announced a strike from May 21 to June 7 after wage negotiations broke down on May 13. The union is demanding a 15% performance bonus based on operating profits and a 7% increase in base salary. JP Morgan Chase estimates that if the strike lasts 18 days, Samsung's quarterly operating profit could decline by as much as 12%. The situation in Taiwan is similarly concerning. Although the semiconductor industry accounts for only 4% of total employment, starting salaries for new hires are five times higher than in other sectors, raising concerns about polarization and economic concentration. As wealth and talent are drawn into one industry, the wage gap between traditional manufacturing and service sectors is widening. Officials and market experts warn that this growing disparity could have repercussions beyond Asia, impacting the global economy. Increasing inequality may dampen consumption, complicate monetary policy, and disrupt global trade flows. There are also concerns that fuel shortages could soon reach a critical point. Andy O'Brien, Chief Financial Officer of ConocoPhillips, stated during the first-quarter earnings call that some import-dependent countries could face severe shortages by June or July. Valero Energy, a U.S. refining company, also warned that supply chain pressures are likely to intensify. Valero CEO Lane Riggs noted, "Every day that the Hormuz Strait remains blocked adds at least three days to our inventory replenishment time," adding that it could take six to twelve months to fully restore inventory. The question remains: when will the upward curve driven by AI and the downward pressure from oil prices converge again? Market consensus suggests that this will ultimately depend on the resolution of the Hormuz Strait blockade. South Korea, benefiting from the semiconductor supercycle while grappling with the shocks to its energy and petrochemical supply chains, is particularly vulnerable to shifts in balance that could have more direct repercussions than in any other Asian country.* This article has been translated by AI. 2026-05-15 11:23:20