The Korea Times

MCM, Louis Vuitton most faked brands

By Kwon Mee-yoo MCM beat Chanel and Louis Vuitton as the brand with the highest number of counterfeit items found in Korea last year. The Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) announced Monday its team caught 139 counterfeiters and confiscated 28,589 imitations, worth 14.5 billion won. More than 4,680 imitations of MCM-branded bags were discovered among fake goods, making the brand the most popular among imitated luxury firms. The company originally hails from Germany and was acquired by Korea’s Sungjoo Group in 2005. It has been repositioned to target a younger generation, mainly university students and working women since then. Fashion accessories including bags were the most popular item among counterfeiters. Chanel (2,863 items) and Louis Vuitton (2,520) came next, followed by Gucci (1,779) and LeSportsac (1,181). KIPO said the range of counterfeit items widened from clothing and bags to electronics such as memory cards. Last year, the intellectual property authority uncovered a company which manufactured 3,179 memory cards pirating the trademark of A

Feb 13, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Companies

Strong crackdown on Myeong-dong hawkers

By Kwon Mee-yoo Myeong-dong, Seoul’s major leisure and business district, known for its endless streams of shoppers, was also famous for noisy touts. However, stroll along its busiest alleys these days and it’s hard to find those aggressive sales assistants who used to shout in Chinese and Japanese and feed leaflets to pedestrians. The Jung-gu ward office has been cracking down on the employment and activity of touts since last week, responding to increasing irritation expressed by locals and tourists. "It wasn’t a pleasant experience to walk around Myeong-dong since I had to shake off touts or reject shopping baskets suddenly held out in front of me every few steps. Sometimes, they would prevent me from going into one shop and instead insist on another,’’ said one shopper. ``The streets now feel as if they are less crowded and look cleaner, without those clownishly dressed touts flocking in front of cosmetics shops.’’ While the touts in Myeong-dong pushed a broad range of items, whether it was drinks, barbeque or shirts, those employed by cosmetics shops were cle

Feb 13, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Companies

Daewoo Shipbuilding CEO to give up 3rd term bid

By Kwon Mee-yoo Nam Sang-tae, 63, president and CEO of Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering, may not serve a third term as major stakeholder the Korea Development Bank (KDB) is attempting to block his bid. According to a finance industry source Sunday, KDB senior officials met Nam and asked him to give up on a third term, which would start in March. Taking office in 2006, he was reappointed in 2009. He is known to have successfully expanded the company’s business portfolio from shipbuilding to offshore wind power plants. The sales of the shipbuilder nearly tripled to 12 trillion won last year, up from 4 trillion won after Nam's inauguration in 2006. Due to his achievements and successful career, many expected him to serve again, but KDB is putting the brakes on this. According to KDB officials, Nam’s long reign and the relatively low stock price of the shipbuilding company are the main reasons to block him from serving another term. Despite profits of over 1 trillion won, the shares of Daewoo Shipbuilding only went up by 28 percent from 25,500 won on

Feb 12, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Companies

‘Fair Trade‘ chocolate popular on Valentine’s Day

By Kwon Mee-yoo When someone receives a box of chocolates as a Valentine’s Day gift, the last thing to come to mind would be the image of African children and those from other countries who are forced to harvest cacao beans. That is changing as people become more aware and are ready to check “Fair Trade” labels before selecting their gifts. Fair Trade is a consumer awareness campaign started in the United States with the goal of paying a fair price to small-scale manufacturers and help ease child labor exploitation in underdeveloped countries. Kim Min-ji, a 29-year-old office worker, bought boxes of Fair Trade chocolate for Valentine's Day. "The simple package clearly indicates where the cocoa beans used in the chocolate come from and how people are paid properly. Though not fancy in shape or packaging, Fair Trade chocolate tastes sweeter to me, because it's free from child exploitation," Kim said. "I think giving Fair Trade chocolate is a good way not only to express love but also shop ethically." The success of the Fair Trade brand could depend on how it fares on

Feb 12, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Companies

Foreign investors own one third of local stocks

By Kwon Mee-yoo Foreign investors are expanding their influence in the local stock market, boosting the stock index. According to the Korea Exchange (KRX) Friday, foreign investors held 33.3 percent, or 371.5 trillion won, worth of Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) stocks, of which the total market capitalization was 1.115 quadrillion won. This is the first time since Oct. 1, 2007 that foreigners have held more than one third of local shares. Foreign investors have purchased more than 8.6 trillion won worth of stocks so far this year, including a record-high monthly buying of 6.2 trillion won in January. They made up 32.9 percent at the end of last year and increased the ratio 0.4 percentage points in a month with aggressive investments. The global investors mainly purchased large capital stock such as Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hynix and LG Chem. The KOSPI, which closed at 1,825 last year, has soared 200 points this year, rising above 2,000 with an earnings rate of over 9 percent. Experts expect the buying trend among international

Feb 10, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Companies

BC Global looms as alternative to Visa

By Kwon Mee-yoo More Koreans than ever are using their credit cards overseas or to shop on international websites. When people use credit card overseas, they check the exchange rates and use discount coupons to save as much as possible. What’s unavoidable, however, is the 1 percent service charge they generally have to pay to international card firms such as Visa and MasterCard when making international purchases. BC Global Card is an economic alternative for those who want to save on credit card use abroad. The card doesn’t charge any handling fees for international use and requires only 2,000 won in annual charges, similar to domestic cards. Launched in April 2011, it is the first Korean credit card that can be used overseas through its own brand, independently of Visa and MasterCard. Due to the popularity of international shopping, more than 1 million BC Global Cards have been issued in seven months. The card is usable in 103 countries, including the United States, China, Japan and Australia. It be used at affiliates of Discover, Diners Club, JCB in Japan a

Feb 7, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Companies

Hanwha escapes stock trading suspension

By Kwon Mee-yoo Hanwha Corporation narrowly escaped a suspension of its stock Sunday despite the latest embezzlement case involving its chairman and other executives. "We decided not to review Hanwha for a possible delisting because we found the firm's transparency improvement plan feasible," Cho Jae-doo, a director at the Korea Exchange (KRX), said at a press conference. He added that the decision was made to stabilize the market and protect investors. The prosecution announced Friday evening that company Chairman Kim Seung-youn and other officials had been indicted for embezzlement. Originally, the KRX said it would suspend trading of Hanwha's stock from today and hold a possible delisting review Friday. However, it quickly reversed its position. Usually a review for delisting takes about two weeks, but the KRX continued discussions over the weekend and announced its decision after accepting the company’s corporate reform plan. The KRX said Hanwha submitted a plan to improve managerial transparency by reinforcing internal control on related transactions, and it

Feb 5, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Thug for life

Companies

Smaller businesses struggle with from cash crisis

By Kwon Mee-yoo Listed small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) might face a series of bankruptcies as their holdings of cash reduced significantly last year. According to the Korea Exchange and the Korea Listed Companies Association, the total cashable assets of 612 listed companies in Korea, which settled accounts on Dec. 31, stood at 52.22 trillion won ($46.71 billion), a 3.4 percent decrease from the previous year. Cashable assets include not just cash, but bank deposits and other financial products that could be turned into cash within three months. The lack of cashable assets could worsen liquidity conditions. Most of the companies with less cashable assets are SMEs based on market capitalization. Among the 42 companies which suffered an over 80 percent decrease of cashable assets, only three of them — GS, Shinsegae Engineering & Construction and LG Fashion — were major companies, the rest were SMEs. A prolonged bad economy prevented these SMEs from issuing company stock, increasing capital or getting bank loans. Vulnerable industries such as c

Feb 5, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Lifestyle

History of Hondgdae in ’Street H’

By Kwon Mee-yoo Street H is a local magazine made by the creative younger generation thriving in Hongdae and for those that congregate in Hongdae. Hongdae is an abbreviation of Hongik University (Hongik Daehakgyo) in Korean, and generally refers to the area of Seogyo-dong, a hub for young artists and underground culture in Seoul. The neighborhood overflows with unique cafes, restaurants, shops and clubs along with artists' studios, cultural spaces and festivals year-round. Packed with people on weekends the district can be thumping well past dawn the next day. Revelers may abound but the real Hongdae people and those involved with Street H know it’s not just about clubbing or decadence. The magazine explores a variety of themes infused in the area. In fact, anything about Hongdae could be a topic for Street H _ small bookshops, a bike-riding map, real estate prices, cafes with terraces, humanities studies, the death of Club Day and the streets of Hongdae seen from the second floor. Street H was established in June 2009 and last month released its 32nd volume feat

Feb 2, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Lifestyle

National Museum director pursues homely atmosphere

By Kwon Mee-yoo Kim Young-na, director of the National Museum of Korea, said she would make the museum a more homely yet sophisticated place, at a press conference Monday. Kim will celebrate her first anniversary as the museum director on Feb. 9. The former art history professor at Seoul National University said she was lucky as her first year went smooth with the return of “Uigwe,” or the royal protocols of the Joseon Kingdom (1392-1910), from Japan and there was an increase in the number of visitors this year to 3.3 million from 3.1 million in 2010. Putting quality over quantity, her focal project this year will be renovating permanent exhibition displays. “The displays were a little bit old-fashioned. All artifacts were built into the walls and visitors had to bend down to see them. I think we need design in the museum,” the director said. She renovated the Paleolithic Period Gallery and Neolithic Period Gallery first last year and reopened them in December and other permanent exhibition galleries will be revamped one by one, starting from Central Asia Gallery in

Jan 31, 2012By Kwon Mee-yoo

Kwon Mee-yoo

Read more

MCM, Louis Vuitton most faked brands

Strong crackdown on Myeong-dong hawkers

Daewoo Shipbuilding CEO to give up 3rd term bid

‘Fair Trade‘ chocolate popular on Valentine’s Day

Foreign investors own one third of local stocks

BC Global looms as alternative to Visa

Hanwha escapes stock trading suspension

Smaller businesses struggle with from cash crisis

History of Hondgdae in ’Street H’

National Museum director pursues homely atmosphere

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