Journalist
Kim Dong-young and Han Jun-gu
davekim0807@ajupress.com
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Seoul opts for antidumping duties on Chinese, Japanese steel for industry relief SEOUL, February 24 (AJP) - South Korea's shipbuilders enjoy heyday on robust orders and backlog, but they had limited trickle-down effect on steelmakers at home as they struggled with the flood of cheaper Chinese and Japanese imports. The government stepped in for relief as the industry undergoes stringent cost-saving streamlining to survive a global glut, a protectionist environment and the U.S. 50-percent tariff on steel imports. On Monday, it warned of antidumping duties of up to 33.43 percent on steel imports after a yearlong investigation. The Korea Trade Commission (KTC), which operates under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, recommended a set of penalty duties to the Minister of Economy and Finance for final approval. The tariffs, ranging from 28.16 percent to 33.43 percent depending on the exporter, will replace provisional duties that have been in force since September 2025. It will hear counterclaims from nine exporters — three Japanese and six Chinese firms — that together accounted for about 81 percent of South Korea's total hot-rolled steel imports over the past three years. Focus on hot-rolled coils The judgment centers on hot-rolled coils (HRC), the foundational building block of the modern steel supply chain. Produced by rolling heated steel slabs at temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius, HRC serves as the primary feedstock for downstream products including cold-rolled sheets, galvanized steel, steel pipes and color-coated plates. South Korea's domestic HRC market alone is valued at about 10 trillion won ($6.92 billion) annually. Because HRC is a commodity-grade material with minimal technical differentiation, pricing is the dominant factor in purchasing decisions, making it especially vulnerable to low-cost import competition. Sector downturn deepens The antidumping action comes as South Korea's broader steel sector grapples with its worst downturn in years. Domestic reinforcement bar (rebar) consumption plunged to a 25-year low in 2025, dragged down by a prolonged slump in the construction industry, according to the Korea Iron & Steel Association. Rebar usage shrank 14.4 percent year on year to 6.66 million tons, the lowest since the association began tracking the data in 2000. Local steelmakers, strained by Chinese oversupply, slowing domestic demand and U.S. tariffs, have resorted to restructuring to survive. Hyundai Steel has decided to permanently shut down one production line at its Incheon rebar plant, while Dongkuk Steel halted production at its own Incheon facility due to similar overproduction issues. Earnings under pressure End-year results show that the financial toll has been stark. Dongkuk Steel's full-year 2025 operating profit tumbled 42.1 percent to 59.4 billion won on revenue of 3.2 trillion won. POSCO Holdings saw consolidated operating profit drop 16 percent to 1.83 trillion won as revenue slipped 5 percent to 69.1 trillion won. Hyundai Steel, which filed the original antidumping petition in December 2024, posted 2025 revenue of 22.7 trillion won, down 2.1 percent, though its operating profit rose 37.4 percent to 219.2 billion won, buoyed by lower raw material costs. However, the company posted an earnings shock in the fourth quarter, with revenue of 5.5 trillion won and operating profit of 43.3 billion won, plunging 53.6 percent from the previous quarter and sharply missing market expectations. Price gap narrows The root of the trade remedy lies in a widening price gap. Japanese and Chinese HRC was sold in the Korean market at an average of about 708,000 won per ton in July 2025, roughly 12.8 percent cheaper than comparable domestic products priced at 812,000 won. After stripping out tariffs and logistics costs, exporters' home-market prices were estimated to be 15 to 20 percent below Korean mills' prices. Provisional duties took effect in September 2025, narrowing the price differential to about 5 percent and resulting in import decline. The government projected that domestic HRC shipments could rise by more than 1 million tons, lifting local producers' market share by about 8.9 percentage points. Some analysts say the latest U.S. tariff measures may have a more limited impact than feared. "The steel tariffs were already imposed during Trump's first term under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act, which allows the president to impose duties on national security grounds, so the impact is limited," said Park Sung-bong, an analyst at Hana Securities. "The Trump administration is reportedly reviewing a reduction in tariffs on derivative products containing steel and aluminum. If this materializes, exports of those products to the U.S. could recover, which is expected to have a partially positive effect on domestic steel demand." 2026-02-24 14:32:32 -
Celltrion unveils dual-track obesity drug strategy with quad-action injectable and oral pill SEOUL, February 24 (AJP) - Celltrion announced it is pursuing a two-pronged approach to the fast-growing obesity treatment market, developing both a first-in-class quadruple-action injectable and a multi-target oral drug designed to challenge dominant players in the space. The injectable candidate reported Tuesday, CT-G32, targets four biological pathways simultaneously, moving beyond the dual- and triple-action GLP-1-based therapies that currently dominate the market. Celltrion said the drug aims to minimize side effects such as muscle loss and efficacy variation among patients while enhancing appetite suppression and weight reduction. The company plans to file an investigational new drug application in the first half of 2027. The oral candidate, meanwhile, acts on multiple targets including GLP-1 receptors, distinguishing it from rival oral treatments that rely on a single mechanism. Celltrion said the pill is expected to broaden patient access by offering easier storage and administration compared to injectables, with an IND filing targeted for the second half of 2028. The push for obesity drug follows a worldwide demand for the market, soon to grow to $173.5 billion by 2031, according to GlobalData, as the worldwide adult overweight rate has surged past 40 percent from about 25 percent in the 1990s. The South Korean drugmaker said the two treatments are designed to complement each other across different stages of obesity care — the injectable for patients requiring aggressive early weight loss, and the oral drug for those seeking long-term maintenance or alternatives to injections. "We plan to enter the obesity drug market with differentiated competitiveness, building on our established dominance in autoimmune diseases and oncology," a Celltrion spokesperson said. "We will do our utmost to maximize corporate value and evolve into a global pharma giant." 2026-02-24 09:17:51 -
EastSoft's AI dubbing platform surpasses 460,000 users, with 90% from overseas SEOUL, February 23 (AJP) - South Korean software firm EastSoft said that its artificial intelligence dubbing and AI human video generation platform, Perso AI, has surpassed 460,000 registered users, with about 90 percent of sign-ups originating from markets in North America and Europe. The milestone announced Monday underscores Perso AI's rapid pivot toward a global user base. While Korean-to-English dubbing dominated early adoption, the platform has since seen a surge in multilingual demand, particularly for English-to-French and English-to-Spanish conversions. EastSoft said it has identified untapped potential in the Japanese and Spanish-speaking markets and plans to sharpen its international strategy accordingly. The company pointed to a series of technical upgrades as key drivers of its competitive edge, including prompt optimization tailored to Google's latest large language model Gemini, performance benchmarking against leading global audio engines, and the adoption of a content delivery network to bolster service stability. The company said it plans to continue refining the platform based on usage patterns from paying subscribers while lowering the entry barrier for new users through hands-on trial content. An EastSoft spokesperson said the platform's strength lies in its accessibility, noting that users can generate AI human video content as simply as building a presentation by entering prompts and making minor adjustments, while also creating digital characters with distinct identities as standalone intellectual properties. "With language demand expanding well beyond French and Spanish into a growing number of countries, we will strengthen our foothold in the global AI dubbing market through continued technological advancement and user experience optimization," the spokesperson said. 2026-02-23 12:05:11 -
Korean shipbuilders mull local and robotic options instead of foreign hires SEOUL, February 23 (AJP) - Two out of every 10 workers at shipyards across South Korea are foreigners, but major builders are increasingly looking to scale back overseas hiring by expanding domestic recruitment and accelerating automation, industry officials said. Leading the shift is HD Hyundai, the world's largest shipbuilder by order backlog, which plans to prioritize replacing departing foreign workers with Korean nationals as labor contracts expire. As of the end of 2025, HD Hyundai's shipbuilding units employed about 11,300 foreign workers, including subcontractors, accounting for roughly 19.8 percent of its 47,000-strong workforce. The industry's reliance on foreign labor has grown steadily in recent years. The number of overseas workers at Korean shipyards surged from 4,640 in 2021 to about 20,200 by the end of 2024, quadrupling in three years, as yards struggled to attract domestic workers to physically demanding jobs with relatively modest pay. However, a prolonged shipbuilding supercycle has strengthened the sector's finances, enabling companies to absorb the higher costs of local hiring and invest aggressively in artificial intelligence and robotics. The combined order backlog of Korea's three major builders stood at about $124 billion in late 2025, near record highs. Vessel exports reached $31.2 billion last year, up 22 percent, driven by demand for LNG carriers and large container ships, according to the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The boom has also been supported by geopolitical tailwinds. Seoul and Washington's "Make American Shipbuilding Great Again" initiative has opened new opportunities, with Korea pledging about $150 billion in shipbuilding-related investments to upgrade U.S. facilities. Domestic political pressure has added momentum. President Lee Jae Myung publicly questioned in January whether foreign workers were displacing Korean job seekers. Yet domestic hiring is only one pillar of a broader transformation. Korean builders are simultaneously pouring resources into AI, digital twins and robotics to offset rising labor costs and chronic shortages of skilled technicians. Earlier this month, HD Hyundai selected Siemens Xcelerator as the backbone of an integrated digital platform spanning its global shipyards under its "Future of Shipyard" program, targeting completion by 2030. "The selection of Siemens Xcelerator represents an important milestone in advancing HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering's digital shipbuilding strategy," said Lee Tae-jin, executive vice president at HD Hyundai. The group has also expanded its partnership with Palantir Technologies to deploy AI-driven analytics across its operations. Hanwha Ocean is investing about 160 billion won to turn its Geoje yard into a smart facility, targeting automation of up to 70 percent of production processes. The company is deploying drones and internet-of-things sensors to collect real-time data, while expanding the use of welding and fabrication robots. Hanwha is also applying its proprietary smart-yard technology to its Philadelphia shipyard in the United States as it seeks to expand in the North American maintenance, repair and overhaul market. Meanwhile, Samsung Heavy Industries has tested a wall-climbing quadruped robot developed by KAIST spinoff Diden Robotics for welding and inspection, with commercial deployment planned for the second half of 2026. The company has also partnered with Rainbow Robotics to co-develop AI-equipped welding robots and mobile dual-arm systems. Industry officials say the parallel push for domestic hiring and automation reflects a calculated strategy to maintain Korea's competitiveness against Chinese rivals, which now control about 63 percent of global new vessel orders. By pairing a more stable workforce with advanced digital tools, Korean shipbuilders are betting they can preserve their technological edge and long-term leadership in the global market. 2026-02-23 11:59:36 -
South Korea's AI Basic Act sparks demand for industry-specific compliance guidelines SEOUL, February 20 (AJP) - South Korea's Basic Act for AI has taken effect, but businesses are struggling to translate the sweeping legislation into concrete operational practice, prompting growing calls for tailored, industry-specific compliance guidelines. The law imposes transparency obligations and governance requirements on companies deploying generative AI and other artificial intelligence technologies, with administrative penalties including fines for non-compliance. Analysts say firms that demonstrate accountability under the new framework stand to gain a competitive edge in the long run. Despite the government's efforts to ease the transition — including the early release of subordinate regulations — uncertainty on the ground remains unresolved. The AI Basic Act Support Desk, jointly operated by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea AI·Software Industry Association (KOSA), received 172 inquiries within just ten days of opening. The surge in interest is visible in the data. Big data analytics platform Quettai recorded about 16,175 mentions of the "AI Basic Act" keyword in January, a 233 percent jump from the same period a year earlier. Notably, related terms such as "difficult," "complicated," and "ambiguous" ranked among the top associated keywords, signaling widespread confusion over compliance requirements. Industry practitioners argue that a one-size-fits-all approach falls short given the wide variance in how AI is deployed across sectors. The same legal provision can carry different implications depending on the industry, making generic guidance insufficient for frontline decision-making. DeepBrain AI, a domestic generative AI firm, recently published a practical compliance guide tailored to the financial, education, and portal sectors — one example of how industry players are moving to fill the guidance gap left by broad regulatory language. With enforcement now underway, businesses and regulators alike face pressure to move beyond interpretation and toward actionable standards before compliance gaps begin to widen. 2026-02-20 10:51:33 -
Pulmuone's U.S. tofu sales hit record high on protein demand, market expansion SEOUL, February 19 (AJP) - South Korean food company Pulmuone posted record tofu sales in the United States last year, driven by surging demand for plant-based protein and a broadening retail footprint. Pulmuone's U.S. tofu revenue rose 12.2 percent year-on-year to about 224.2 billion won ($154.4 million) in 2025, the company said Thursday. Tofu accounts for roughly half of the U.S. unit's total revenue, and the company has held the top market share position in the American tofu segment for 11 consecutive years. The fastest-growing product was its High Protein Tofu line, which nearly tripled in sales from 15.6 billion won in 2021 to 41.5 billion won in 2024. Delivering 14 grams of protein per 85-gram serving, the product has found resonance among consumers looking to replace meat with cleaner protein sources. "The demand for tofu in the U.S. is steadily increasing as the flexitarian population grows and the trend of consuming high-protein, plant-based foods instead of meat spreads," said KS Cho, CEO of Pulmuone Foods USA. "By expanding our supply and actively targeting new channels alongside existing retail growth, we plan to further solidify our leadership in the U.S. tofu market." Pulmuone entered the U.S. tofu market in earnest after acquiring the country's leading tofu brand Nasoya in 2016. The company now operates three tofu manufacturing plants — two in Ayer, Massachusetts, and one in Fullerton, California — and sells its products across about 15,000 retail locations, including Walmart, Target, Publix, and Kroger. The company said it secured major new retail accounts in the third quarter of last year and plans to complete a production line expansion at its Ayer facility during the first quarter of this year. It is also pursuing additional capacity at the Fullerton plant and eyeing foodservice, school cafeterias, and B2B food ingredient channels as avenues for further growth. 2026-02-19 13:45:30 -
SK Innovation selected to develop $2.3 bln LNG power project in Vietnam SEOUL, February 19 (AJP) - SK Innovation has been selected as the developer of a $2.3 billion liquefied natural gas power project in northern Vietnam, marking a significant step in the South Korean energy company's push to expand its global LNG footprint. The project, located in the Quynh Lap area of Nghe An province, about 220 kilometers south of Hanoi, calls for the construction of a 1,500-megawatt combined-cycle gas power plant, a 250,000-cubic-meter LNG terminal, and a dedicated seaport. SK Innovation is developing the project through a consortium with Vietnamese state-owned power producer PV Power and local firm NASU. Construction is slated to begin in 2027, with the terminal and power plant targeted for completion by 2030. The Quynh Lap project drew competitive interest from the outset — companies from South Korea, Japan, and Qatar cleared preliminary screening when the project was first tendered in 2024, with the formal developer selection process launched in January this year. "This selection proves that SK's unrivaled LNG value chain competitiveness resonates in the global market," an SK Innovation official said, adding that the company aims to address Vietnam's chronic power shortages while spurring regional economic growth in Nghe An province. Vietnam has long grappled with electricity deficits driven by rapid industrialization and population growth, with its grid heavily reliant on coal and hydropower. SK Innovation said it plans to use LNG as a bridging fuel before transitioning to carbon-free power sources over the long term. The company aims to leverage the Quynh Lap project as a springboard to replicate its model across Vietnam, building what it calls an "energy-industry cluster" network. SK Innovation is targeting a global LNG portfolio of 10 million tons per year by 2030, up from its current annual volume of about 6 million tons. The deal comes amid sluggish last year results. SK Innovation disclosed last month that its consolidated revenue rose 8.2 percent year-on-year to 80.29 trillion won ($55.32 billion) in 2025, while operating profit climbed 25.8 percent to 448.1 billion won. However, the company swung to a net loss of 5.41 trillion won, a 127.9 percent deterioration from the prior year, prompting the company to forgo dividend payments. The company attributed the bottom-line weakness to sluggish off-season performance at its E&S unit and softening profitability in its battery business, which offset the benefits of firm refining margins and solid results from its lubricants segment. Stocks of SK Innovation traded at 116,900 won ($80.55) on 11:30 a.m., 2.72 percent higher from the previous session. 2026-02-19 11:38:15 -
S.Korea's top policy aide says AI race hinges on electricity, not code SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - South Korea's presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom urged the nation to elevate its power grid to the status of strategic national infrastructure, warning that the global artificial intelligence contest is no longer a battle of algorithms but of physical resources. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Kim wrote that AI had evolved into a capital-intensive hardware industry, making scarce commodities such as graphics processing units (GPUs), memory chips, transmission lines and electricity far more decisive than software code. "Intelligence spreads and is replicated quickly. Models are caught up to. Code proliferates. But power plants, transmission networks and semiconductor fabs cannot be copied overnight," Kim said. Kim singled out what he described as a looming paradox for Asia's fourth-largest economy: SK hynix and Samsung Electronics produce the world's most advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) destined for Nvidia GPUs in overseas data centers, yet South Korea itself lacks sufficient large-scale AI computing clusters to harness the technology at home. The policy chief stressed that while South Korea does not face an outright electricity shortage, the deeper challenge lies in delivering power at the scale and speed that AI demands. Kim also championed the principle of local production and consumption of electricity, insisting that power-generating regions should share in the industrial benefits. The remarks come as South Korea prepares to draft its 12th basic plan for electricity supply and demand, a 15-year blueprint covering 2026 through 2040 that will shape the country's energy mix amid surging demand from AI data centers. The government earlier committed to constructing two large-scale nuclear reactors under the 11th electricity supply plan finalized in February 2025, signaling its intent to align energy policy with the power-hungry demands of next-generation industries. 2026-02-18 17:24:55 -
South Korea, Czech Republic forge ministerial framework to fast-track Dukovany nuclear project SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - South Korea and the Czech Republic agreed to establish a ministerial-level consultative body to oversee the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Dukovany site, as both nations deepen an energy partnership worth about 26 trillion won ($18 billion). South Korean Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Kim Jung-kwan met newly inaugurated Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and his counterpart Karel Havlicek in Prague on Monday (local time) at the Czech government's invitation, Seoul's industry ministry said Wednesday. The two ministers agreed to set up a joint committee that will convene three to four times a year, either virtually or in person, to monitor progress and coordinate support for the project. Executives from Czech project company Elektrarna Dukovany II and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) will also take part, with the first session held the same day. Kim delivered a personal letter from South Korean President Lee Jae Myung congratulating Babis on his December inauguration, the ministry said. On the sidelines of the talks, Doosan Enerbility signed a deal worth about 320 billion won with its Czech subsidiary Doosan Skoda Power to supply steam turbines and turbine control systems for Dukovany units 5 and 6. The contract marks the first large-scale collaboration between a "Team Korea" member and a local Czech firm, reflecting Prague's emphasis on localization from the project's early stages. Under the main contract signed in June last year, KHNP will build two 1,000-megawatt APR1000 reactors — South Korea's homegrown pressurised water reactor design — at the Dukovany site. The previous Czech government also agreed to give KHNP priority negotiating rights for two additional units planned at the Temelin plant. "The Dukovany project transcends a mere infrastructure undertaking — it will stand as a symbol of robust solidarity and cooperation between our two nations for decades to come, and a chance to reaffirm Korean nuclear competitiveness on the world stage, following the Barakah plant in the UAE," Kim said on his return to Seoul. 2026-02-18 14:57:26 -
Big tech giants ramp up hiring of Korean semiconductor engineers as AI chip race intensifies SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - Major U.S. technology firms including Nvidia, Google, and Tesla are aggressively recruiting South Korean semiconductor engineers, zeroing in on the country's deep pool of expertise in high-bandwidth memory as the global race for artificial intelligence hardware accelerates. The hiring push marks a significant escalation from earlier years, when recruitment of Korean chip talent was largely confined to memory makers such as Micron Technology and mobile chip designer Qualcomm. Now, the world's most valuable tech companies are dangling Silicon Valley salaries and equity packages to lure specialists in a technology that has become the linchpin of the AI revolution. Nvidia, the dominant force in AI accelerators and the largest buyer of HBM chips, is currently advertising positions for senior memory system engineers at its Santa Clara headquarters, offering a base salary of up to $356,500. The role calls for at least 10 years of proven track record in DRAM design and deep understanding of HBM — a profile that effectively targets engineers at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the two companies that control the vast majority of the global HBM market. Google and Broadcom, which jointly develop Tensor Processing Units for Google's AI infrastructure, are also hiring HBM engineers in Silicon Valley. Google has posted openings for silicon validation engineers tasked with characterizing HBM operation in test chips and production silicon, while Broadcom is seeks specialists in design-for-test verification across HBM, DDR and high-speed interface technologies. Tesla has taken the most direct approach. Tesla Korea posted a job listing for AI Chip Design Engineers on Feb. 15, describing the role as part of a project to develop AI chip architecture aimed at achieving the world's highest production volume. CEO Elon Musk amplified the recruitment drive the on Tuesday, reposting the job opening on his X (formerly Twitter) account. The company's interest in Korean talent deepens a semiconductor partnership that has been building for months. Tesla has been expanding its in-house chip operations in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province — the same city that houses Samsung's wafer fabrication hub — as it prepares for production of next-generation AI chips at Samsung's foundry. The talent war reflects a structural shift in the AI industry. As tech giants pour hundreds of billions of dollars into data center infrastructure, HBM has emerged as the critical bottleneck. The memory, which stacks multiple DRAM layers using through-silicon vias to deliver vastly higher bandwidth than conventional chips, is essential for training and running the large language models that underpin generative AI. The Bank of America estimates the global HBM market will reach about $34.6 billion in 2025 and grow to $54.6 billion in 2026, with demand for custom-ordered, ASIC-based AI chips to skyrocket by 82 percent, accounting for around one-third of the market. Currently, SK hynix holds a dominant market share of over 50 percent in HBM, with Samsung and Micron competing for the remainder. The competitive landscape is poised to intensify further with the advent of custom HBM, or cHBM, in which big tech clients design proprietary logic dies tailored to their specific AI chip architectures. SK hynix showcased cHBM technology at CES 2026 in January, and Samsung has reportedly added new engineers to custom HBM projects targeting Google, Meta and NVIDIA. Volume production of custom HBM is widely expected to begin in 2027. For Samsung and SK hynix, the escalating brain drain has triggered aggressive retention measures. SK hynix paid a record performance bonus equivalent to 2,964 percent of monthly base salary in early 2026, after allocating 10 percent of its annual operating profit of 47.2 trillion won ($32.67 billion) to an employee bonus pool under a revised labor agreement struck in September 2025. Samsung's semiconductor division, meanwhile, awarded bonuses of up to 47 percent of annual salary for 2025, its highest payout since the AI-driven memory boom began. Industry observers say the defensive measures may not be enough to stem the tide. The combination of Silicon Valley compensation — which for senior engineers can exceed $300,000 in base salary alone, before stock grants — and the prestige of working on cutting-edge AI systems presents a formidable draw. 2026-02-18 12:17:45