Local paper headlines September 4

1. Chosun Ilbo

- It gets harder for middle-income family to buy their own house as their yearly income has not increased but house prices go up, house supply is in short, and interests for mortgage loan is rising due to various government’s measures to cool down the property market.

- Unionized workers at the country’s five major power companies said they would launch a strike today over failed negotiations with the management for a pay rise and better working conditions, triggering the government to bring about a 3,500-member emergency task force.

- Supreme Prosecutor’s Office investigating the “Sea Story gate” revealed yesterday that it will confiscate and scrap 60,000 gambling machines nationwide.

- 200 conservative civic groups gathered together in front of city hall plaza on Saturday to pretest mainly against the on-going wartime command transfer from the US to Korea. The gathering was attended by more than 200,000 people including former GNP leader Park Geun-hye and former Seoul mayor Lee Myung-bak.

- The US opening of Yoduk Story, originally scheduled to run from August 28, is being delayed due to lack of collateral of W300 m requested by a US national theater.

- According to a report by Samsung Economic Research Institute, local companies will not survive if failed to aggressively go for M&A of foreign companies. Foreign companies attempts to conclude M&A against Korean companies, service sector in particular, will become stronger, the report said.

2. Maeil Business Daily

- Korean financial companies make bold inroads into South East Asia and Central Asia for better opportunity in emerging markets. Kang Jung-won, CEO of KB, said “Korean financial companies learnt a lot from foreign capital so now is time for us to go overseas to show our ability that we have accumulated so far.”

- A survey by Maekyung on Korean economists shows that 62 per cent of 52 respondents advise the government proceed with the FTA negotiation without considering the expiration of TPA, saying that it will work to Korea’s disadvantage if the US gets the impression of Korea being hurried in concluding the deal.

- Samsung Electronics and LG electronics decided to increase production facilities in Europe to meet the skyrocketing demand for LCD and PDP TV. Europe is the biggest digital TV market, taking up 40 per cent of the world digital TV demand.