South Korea) Presidential secretary offers to resign over election intervention

A presidential aide offered to resign Saturday after allegations were raised that he illegally intervened in the ruling party's nomination process for candidates who want to run in June's local elections, the presidential office said.

   "Lim Jong-hoon, a presidential secretary for civil affairs, handed in his resignation, and we believe it will be accepted," presidential spokesman Min Kyung-wook told Yonhap News Agency. 

   Min said that action against the secretary is expected to be taken on Monday at the earliest.

   On Friday, critic alleged that Lim had interviewed all 15 candidates vying for party nomination for local councilors in a constituency in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul.

   By law, public officials are banned from intervening in elections. (Yonhap)

LG's smartphone revenue tops $11b in 2013

South Korea's No. 2 tech giant LG Electronics Inc. saw its revenue from smartphone sales reach $11.07 billion last year, market research data showed Thursday, further distancing itself from smaller tech players around the globe.

   The pursuer of Samsung Electronics Co. became the world's No. 3 smartphone maker in terms of sales in 2013 by accounting for 4.1 percent of the industry's combined revenue, the data by Strategy Analytics showed.

   LG's latest standing marked an improvement from sixth a year earlier when it trailed behind Samsung, Apple Inc., HTC Corp., Sony Corp. and Blackberry.    It was also the first time for LG to see its smartphone sales rise above the $10-billion mark. The company's smartphone sales stood at $1.9 billion in 2010 and quickly improved to $7.3 billion in 2012.

   Market watchers attributed the on-year rise to LG's high-end line-up, such as the G2 smartphone and the G Pro phablets.

   While Chinese technology companies outdid LG in terms of units sold last year, their revenue remained relatively weak as they focused on lower-end products sold at home. 

   The revenues of Huawei Technologies Co., Lenovo Group Ltd and ZTE Corp. from the smartphone business came to $3.9 billion, $2.3 billion and $1.8 billion, respectively, last year. 

   Apple and Samsung's smartphone sales came to $92.8 billion and
$92.3 billion won, respectively, the data also showed.

   Separate data by Strategy Analytics placed Samsung on higher footing for the first quarter of 2014, estimating its world market share at 36.2 percent compared to 17 percent for Apple Inc. (Yonhap)

  

Three-way FTA talks with Japan, China end with little progress

The latest round of negotiations for a trilateral free trade agreement (FTA) with China and Japan ended without a major breakthrough, officials said Friday, with the talks mostly limited to setting the boundary of their discussions.

   "At this round of talks, the countries held discussions on the modality (negotiation guidelines) for products and the scope of their negotiations," the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a press release.

   The fourth round of the trilateral FTA negotiations had begun on Tuesday in Seoul.

   The three countries, which are currently embroiled in various territorial and historical rows, had agreed to pursue a joint FTA in November 2012. The first round of talks opened in March last year.

   The South Korean trade ministry said the countries held working group talks on some of the key issues, such as country of origin, customs and non-tariff barriers. Separate talks were also held on the service industry, investment and competition, it said.

   Working level negotiations of intellectual property rights protection did not take place this time around.

   Insiders said Japan showed considerable aggressiveness at the talks, that may have to do in part to Tokyo being conscious of the nine rounds of bilateral FTA talks held between Seoul and Beijing.

   Trade Minister Yoon Sang-jick had told reporters a day before the start of the talks that the negotiations may not produce any significant outcome, saying "Negotiations do not always go smoothly. In certain cases, the countries must engage in a tug of war."

   The trilateral agreement, if realized, will create one of the world's largest markets as the three countries jointly account for 20 percent of global gross domestic product and 17.5 percent of global trade.

  The ministry said the next round of negotiations will be held in China in July with South Korean officials, stressing they will bear in mind the need to maintain a degree of consistency with ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership talks. (Yonhap)