Yonhap News Summary

The following is the first summary of major stories moved by Yonhap News Agency on Thursday.

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(2nd LD) Steady rise in club-linked cases still worrisome amid infections slowdown

SEOUL -- South Korea's new coronavirus cases slowed Thursday, but health authorities are still fretting over further community spread tied to entertainment facilities and a hospital.

The 12 new cases detected Wednesday raised the total caseload to 11,122, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC). Of them, 10 were local infections.

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(2nd LD) Korea's exports sink 20 pct in first 20 days of May over pandemic

SEJONG -- South Korea's exports sank 20.3 percent on year in the first 20 days of May amid the shock from the coronavirus pandemic, customs data showed Thursday.

The nation's outbound shipments stood at US$20.3 billion in the May 1-20 period, according to the data from the Korea Customs Service.

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Korea's exports of virus test kits tipped to grow further

SEOUL -- South Korea's exports of coronavirus test kits are expected to gather momentum down the road thanks to high overseas demand, industry sources said Thursday.

With the coronavirus outbreak raging across the globe, many affected countries are scrambling to import South Korean COVID-19 test kits, in a boon to local manufacturers.

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Samsung dominates U.S.' 5G smartphone market in Q1: report

SEOUL -- Samsung Electronics Co. dominated the 5G smartphone market in the United States in the first quarter of the year, a report showed Thursday.

Samsung's Galaxy S20 series, which was unveiled in February, made up 94 percent of the U.S. 5G smartphone market in the January-March period, according to market tracker Strategy Analytics, with the S20 Plus being the best-selling model.

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Samsung to add foundry production line in S. Korea

SEOUL -- Samsung Electronics Co. said Thursday it will add a foundry production line in South Korea amid its heated competition with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) Ltd.

Samsung said its new foundry manufacturing line using the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography technology will be established at its chip plant in Pyeongtaek, some 70 kilometers south of Seoul.

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Eximbank sells AU$700 mln of bonds in Australia

SEOUL -- The state-run Export-Import Bank of Korea (Eximbank) said Wednesday it has sold 700 million Australian dollars (US$460 million) of bonds in Australia as part of efforts to diversify its funding sources.

The three-year "Kangaroo" bonds come in two tranches -- floating-rate bonds worth AU$500 million and fixed-rate debt worth AU$200 million.

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N. Korea's paper calls for production of high-quality goods

SEOUL -- North Korea's main newspaper called on manufacturers Thursday to make sure to produce quality goods, saying they often display high-quality products at exhibitions, but end up mass-producing lower quality goods.

"Many units are displaying shoes, energy, finishing materials, food and various other technology and products that could turn into their representative items, but it does not necessarily lead to normalization of their production," the Rodong Sinmun, the organ of the North's ruling party, said.

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S. Korea's producer prices dip in April on low global oil prices

SEOUL -- South Korea's producer prices continued to drop from a month earlier in April largely due to a sharp decline in global oil prices, central bank data showed Thursday.

The producer price index for all commodities and services came to 102.08 last month, down 0.7 percent from the revised 102.82 the month before, according to preliminary data from the Bank of Korea (BOK).
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