AJU PRESS ASIA FIRST NEWS AGENCY

Journalist

김동영
Seo Hye-seung
  • Samsung Biologics wins court penalty against union strike
    Samsung Biologics wins court penalty against union strike SEOUL, May 22 (AJP) - A South Korean court has ordered Samsung Biologics' labor union to pay 20 million won ($13,196) every time it violates an injunction restricting strike action at sensitive bioreactor lines, escalating a legal standoff at the world's largest contract drugmaker. Reports on Friday said the Incheon District Court granted Samsung Biologics' application for indirect compulsion against the union. The ruling reinforces an earlier injunction that bars union leaders from directing members on certain essential production lines to stop work or from circulating related instructions. The court had initially declined to attach financial penalties to the March injunction after the union pledged to abide by it. That pledge unraveled on April 27, when union leadership distributed a "strike guidance procedure" to members and roughly 300 employees assigned to court-restricted processes joined the subsequent walkout, prompting the company to refile. Samsung Biologics had sought 100 million won per violation, but the court awarded a fifth of that amount. "The union must not, during the period of industrial action based on the March 29, 2026 strike vote, instruct members to halt court-designated processes or distribute related guidelines," the bench said in its order. Industry observers said the decision underscores the unique vulnerability of biologic drug manufacturing, where even brief stoppages at fermentation or purification stages can spoil raw materials and finished products worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The company is separately appealing to expand the injunction's scope to cover its entire production footprint. The Samsung Biologics dispute stands apart from the wage standoff at affiliate Samsung Electronics, where its union on Wednesday suspended an 18-day general strike that had been scheduled to begin Thursday and run through June 7. Union members at Samsung Electronics will vote on the tentative wage agreement from Friday through May 27, while Samsung Biologics remains locked in litigation over the scope and enforcement of its own injunction. 2026-05-22 14:17:07
  • Samyang to court Southeast Asia at Bangkok food fair
    Samyang to court Southeast Asia at Bangkok food fair SEOUL, May 22 (AJP) - Samyang Foods will showcase its spicy noodle lineup at THAIFEX-Anuga Asia 2026, Asia's largest food and beverage trade fair, as the Korean instant ramen maker pushes deeper into Southeast Asia's fast-growing snack market. The five-day exhibition runs from May 26 to 30 at IMPACT Muang Thong Thani in Bangkok. Now in its 21st year, the fair last year drew about 88,000 visitors from 143 countries and 3,231 exhibitors from 57 nations, according to organizers. Samyang announced Friday that it will operate an experiential booth themed "Samyang Crave Lab," staging its flagship Buldak alongside newer brands MEP and Tangle in separate "brand labs" designed to walk visitors through each line's identity and flavor profile. Sampling sessions throughout the day will feature staples such as the original Buldak, Buldak Carbonara and the newly launched Buldak Swicy, and localized offerings including a chili-chicken-cilantro ramen and grilled garlic shrimp ramen tailored to Southeast Asian palates. Canapés made with Buldak sauce will also be served. "We focused on designing a space where visitors can taste, enjoy and immerse themselves in Samyang's brands rather than simply view products on display," said a Samyang Foods spokesperson, adding that the company will keep widening its Southeast Asian footprint through differentiated brands including MEP and Tangle on top of Buldak. 2026-05-22 10:54:30
  • Hanwha Qcells to supply modules for South Koreas largest solar project
    Hanwha Qcells to supply modules for South Korea's largest solar project SEOUL, May 21 (AJP) - Hanwha Solutions' Qcells division announced it will supply high-efficiency solar cells and modules for a 400-megawatt solar power project being developed by Korea South-East Power (KOSEP), the largest solar installation ever built on a single site in South Korea. The plant, set to rise across about 4.63 square kilometers of land in Haenam County, South Jeolla Province, is scheduled for completion in June 2028. KOSEP selected a preferred EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) contractor for the project on Tuesday, one day before the announcement. The chosen EPC firm will install about 640,000 solar modules incorporating cells manufactured exclusively at Hanwha Qcells' production facility in Jincheon, North Chungcheong Province — the company's largest domestic manufacturing base. "This project offered an opportunity to demonstrate the competitiveness of Korean-made solar technology on a large scale," said Yu Jae-yeol, head of Hanwha Qcells' Korea business division, adding that sustained policy support for domestic renewable energy and locally produced components could help restore the country's solar supply chain and drive further investment. The project arrives as South Korea pushes to expand its renewable energy capacity, with domestic manufacturers seeking to reclaim ground in a market long pressured by low-cost overseas competition. 2026-05-21 16:58:15
  • South Korea happy to stay the laggard in self-driving race in Asia
    South Korea happy to stay the laggard in self-driving race in Asia SEOUL, May 21 (AJP) - The self-driving race on Asian roads is heating up, but South Korea is in no hurry as it bets safety-first approach will take it farther at the end of the day. China is rapidly scaling up commercial robotaxi fleets while Japan has unlocked Level 4 services on public roads. Modest in comparison, Hyundai Motor Group is launching a citywide testbed in Gwangju to close the gap with overseas rivals. Speaking to reporters last week at the group’s headquarters in southern Seoul, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Eui-sun openly acknowledged the gap but signaled that Hyundai would not chase speed at any cost. "Autonomous driving is being pushed very quickly by China and Tesla," Chung said, admitting "Waymo is also doing well." "Technology can make up for what is lacking, but the most important thing is safety," he added, suggesting Hyundai would not be matching rivals in speed. In any fledgling market, moving first has its advantages. The global autonomous driving market is projected to grow from $286.45 billion in 2026 to about $3.03 trillion by 2033, according to Coherent Market Insights. Goldman Sachs Research separately estimates the broader autonomous vehicle sector could generate roughly $2 trillion in annual revenue by 2035, with the global commercial robotaxi fleet expanding from around 7,000 vehicles in 2025 to some 6 million by 2035. China leads the Asian pack. Baidu’s Apollo Go now operates in 27 cities globally, with weekly rides peaking at more than 350,000 in March, and is expected to begin testing robotaxis in London alongside Uber and Lyft. Pony.ai, partnered with Toyota Motor China and GAC Toyota, said in February it had begun mass production of its seventh-generation bZ4X robotaxi and is targeting a fleet of more than 3,000 vehicles by year-end. WeRide has expanded into Singapore and the Middle East, while Mercedes-Benz-backed Momenta is rolling out robotaxis on Uber’s network in German cities. Japan is moving less aggressively, but visibly nonetheless. The country revised its Road Traffic Act in April 2023 to permit Level 4 driving on public roads under prefectural public safety commission oversight, paving the way for pilot services by Honda Motor, Nissan, Toyota Motor and open-source platform developer Tier IV. Eiheiji Town in Fukui Prefecture launched the country’s first Level 4 public-road service in May 2023, and Tier IV completed robotaxi pilot tests in Tokyo’s Odaiba and Nishi-Shinjuku districts in late 2024. Korea, despite its technology and manufacturing capacity, is still taking its time. The Gwangju pilot is Seoul’s most ambitious response to date, with the southwestern city last month becoming the first major Korean municipality to designate its entire road network as a Level 4 testbed. Hyundai plans to deploy 200 self-driving vehicles equipped with eight cameras and one radar in the second half of this year. The Gwangju fleet will run on Atria AI, an in-house autonomous driving stack developed by Hyundai subsidiary 42dot. Hyundai is also weighing adoption of Alpamayo, the open-source reasoning vision-language-action model unveiled by Nvidia at CES 2026, although no formal partnership has been announced. In January, the group named Park Min-woo — a self-driving specialist who previously worked at Tesla and Nvidia — as chief executive of 42dot and head of its Advanced Vehicle Platform division. Structural hurdles remain. The Board of Audit and Inspection, in a 2024 review of Korea’s response to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said inter-ministerial disputes had delayed government decisions on autonomous driving for an extended period, widening the technology gap with overseas rivals. Yet Hyundai’s safety-first posture, echoed by domestic researchers, points to what some experts see as Korea’s potential differentiator. While the country may trail Tesla’s accumulated driving data and the centralized push of China’s state-backed champions, Korean academics argue the local industry is steering its AI training toward courtesy, caution and respect on the road — a "warmer" model of autonomy that could carve out a distinct niche. "Aggressive driving is something an autonomous AI can also learn," said Lim Yong-seob, professor of robotics and mechatronics engineering at the Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology. "AI prioritizes goal completion above all, so it may follow user commands absolutely and even adopt dangerous driving methods to save time, sidelining humans and triggering collisions as vehicles compete for resources with other autonomous cars," Lim said. "Research actually shows that cooperative autonomous driving with frequent yielding can sharply cut collision rates, even at the cost of slightly slower travel. A conservative, human-protecting style of autonomy — one that errs on caution in rain or unusual conditions — will become increasingly important." For Seoul, the next 18 months in Gwangju may determine whether South Korea can claw back lost ground — or watch the next great mobility platform be built largely in Beijing, Tokyo and Silicon Valley. 2026-05-21 15:11:28
  • Subnautica 2 sells 4 million copies in five days after early access launch
    Subnautica 2 sells 4 million copies in five days after early access launch SEOUL, May 21 (AJP) - Subnautica 2, the underwater survival sequel developed by Krafton's creative studio Unknown Worlds Entertainment, has sold about 4 million copies worldwide within five days of its early access release on May 15. The title, built on Unreal Engine 5 and set on a new alien ocean planet, logged 1 million sales at launch before surging past 2 million within the first 12 hours. Peak concurrent players on Steam reached about 467,000, while average daily active users stood at 1.3 million. Cumulative playtime has exceeded 28.57 million hours since launch. The game currently holds a "Very Positive" rating on Steam, with more than 73,000 user reviews and an approval rate of 91 percent. Subnautica 2 is available on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox Series X|S. "We’re incredibly grateful for the response from players around the world," said Fernando Melo, the game's executive producer. "Community feedback continues to help shape the future of Subnautica 2, and we’re excited to keep building the experience together with our players." Unknown Worlds Entertainment is the studio behind the original Subnautica, a title widely credited with defining the marine survival genre. The sequel introduces series-first cooperative multiplayer for up to four players, allowing teams to coordinate survival strategies and share discoveries across its vast alien seascape. The developer has outlined upcoming patches to adjust creature aggression and detection range, and to enhance the utility of survival tools, as it works toward a full release in response to player feedback gathered during early access. 2026-05-21 10:27:50
  • CJ Group seeks police probe over leak of female employees personal data
    CJ Group seeks police probe over leak of female employees' personal data SEOUL, May 20 (AJP) - CJ Group filed a complaint with the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency over the leak of personal information belonging to about 330 female employees via a Telegram channel, in the latest in a string of data security breaches rattling corporate Korea. The disclosed material the group revealed on Wednesday included mobile phone numbers, internal extensions, job titles and profile photographs, all of which matched current and former staff records, the company said. The Telegram channel, opened in 2023 and followed by about 2,800 users, surfaced over the weekend and prompted an internal probe pointing to a likely insider leak rather than an external hack, given that some of the exposed fields could only be retrieved through CJ's intranet. "We will cooperate fully with the police investigation," a CJ Group spokesperson said, adding that affected employees had been notified individually and that the company was taking steps to prevent secondary harm. The breach does not meet the threshold for mandatory reporting to the Personal Information Protection Commission, the company said, as it involves fewer than 1,000 people and does not include resident registration numbers or other sensitive identifiers. Even so, the incident has drawn fresh scrutiny because the leaked photographs and contact details target female staff exclusively, raising the prospect of stalking, harassment and other downstream abuse. The CJ leak lands amid a punishing run of cyber and data incidents at South Korean conglomerates. Shinsegae Group's IT affiliate disclosed in late December that malware had compromised the records of about 80,000 employees, including staff numbers and, for some, names, departments and IP addresses, through the group's intranet. Days later, Korean Air said about 30,000 employee records, including names and bank account numbers, were exposed when Korean Air C&D Services, a catering supplier spun off from the airline in 2020, was breached by an external hacker group. Mobile carriers SK Telecom and KT also came under government investigation last year, with the SK Telecom breach exposing internal data tied to roughly 27 million users. 2026-05-20 17:19:55
  • Homeplus stores fade as Koreas offline retail hunts for a lifeline
    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
    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
    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
    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