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Lotte Department Store celebrated the opening of its Russian branch, the Lotte Plaza in Moscow, on Sunday. The celebration was attended by some 300 political and financial figures from the two countries, including Lotte Group executive vice chairman Shin Dong-bin and Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov.

The Lotte Plaza is in the bustling, trendy New Arbat Street, 2 km west from the Kremlin Palace at the heart of downtown Moscow.It cost US$200 million to build and covers 80,000 sq.m with seven floors plus one underground.

A new Lotte Department Store has opened in Moscow, Russia.

It also differentiates itself from Russian rivals by aggressive marketing strategies borrowed from Korea, which categorize customers into several classes depending on how much they spend. Lotte Department Store operates an exclusive lounge, a membership system and valet parking service for “most valuable” customers.

The company expects the Moscow store to earn W58 billion(US$1=W938) in the remaining months of this year and W140 billion next year, and break even in three years. Already the Korean retail giant is considering another store in Moscow and a store in Russia’s second largest city Saint Petersburg if the first Moscow store proves lucrative.

Lotte will open its first Chinese branch in Beijing in January next year. By branching out into overseas markets, it aims to become one of the world’s top 10 department stores by 2010. In 2005, the U.S.’ In-Store magazine ranked Lotte 14th among department stores around the world.

When Seoul Metropolitan Rapid Transit Corporation confirms the plan to raise its fares, Seoul Metro, which operates lines No. 1 to 4, is likely to follow suit, leading to a fare increase across the city.

According to the corporation's master plan report submitted to Seoul Metropolitan Council member Lee Youn-young on Thursday, it is reviewing a plan that would see subway fares rise by W200 once every two years through 2011.

Starting at W900 now, basic subway fares would hit W1,100 in 2009 and W1,300 in 2011 based on transportation card fares, according to the plan.

A fare of W1,300 would be a whopping 44 percent increase from the current fare. The plan to raise the fares is expected to encounter strong public opposition.

The feat follows another first achieved three years ago when HHI built an oil carrier using the "on-ground building" method.

HHI brought out the 82,000㎥ LPG carrier built for Norway's Bergesen at Hyundai's Ulsan factory on Wednesday.

By completing an LPG vessel which has a complex cargo system, HHI demonstrated that any kind of ship can be built on land without dry docks.

HHI regards Wednesday's triumph as a defining event in the history of shipbuilding, firmly establishing the on-ground building method and doing away with dry docks.

Oh Byung-wook, senior EVP and COO of the company's Offshore & Engineering Division, said HHI plans to maximize its on-ground facility by doubling capacity from eight ships per year to 16 and stepping up efforts to advance the system.

Located in northeastern China, the mill has an annual capacity of 1.8 million metric tons.

Cold-rolling mills produce cold-rolled steel plate by hardening and compressing hot-rolled steel plate after processing its surface at normal temperature.

POSCO held a dedication ceremony for the new mill in the city of Benxi in Liaoning Province on Tuesday, which was attended by POSCO chairman Lee Ku-taek and the head of Liaoning Province.

The mill, 25-percent owned by POSCO, will produce around 800,000 tons of cold-rolled steel plate and 800,000 tons of galvanized steel plate. The metal will be supplied to local auto plants and home appliance factories.

"The mill will greatly contribute to the development of industry in northeastern China," POSCO chairman Lee said.

The company said on Tuesday that it set up a task force last week to review an Internet protocol television (IPTV) unit. "The team will study the feasibility of the business, set out the direction and report the results to senior company officials," SK Telecom said.

SK Telecom has until now been resistant to entering the Internet-based broadcasting sector.

IPTV allows users to watch programming over a high-speed Internet connection. If SK Telecom wants to make inroads into the IPTV market, it would need to acquire or merge with an Internet provider.

Hanaro Telecom, which operates its own Internet TV business Hana TV, and other operators equipped with cable Internet networks are possible targets for M&A.

Hana TV, which launched in July last year, has signed up 540,000 subscribers as of the end of June.

Korea Telecom earlier this month began airing HD programming on its Internet TV service Mega TV. LG Dacom plans to launch an Internet TV service in September.

The Indian currency rose nearly seven percent against the U.S. dollar from April to June this year.

S. Ramadorai is chief executive officer of India's largest software services company, Tata Consultancy Services or TCS. He says an increase in outsourcing orders helped offset a decline in export revenues caused by the rupee's appreciation during the quarter.

The company's profit rose 37 percent to $293 million over the same period last year.

"All and all that was in a great performance by TCS in a challenging time," he said. "And we hopefully will continue the performance in the quarters and years ahead."

Another Indian IT services company, Wipro, reported a 16 percent increase in profit to $175 million, for the quarter ending in June.

"The results for the quarter are satisfying considering the strong headwinds faced by us in the form of an appreciating rupee," said Azim Premji, Wipro's chairman.

Middle Eastern companies expanded their investments in the region. Saudi-owned Kingdom Hotel Investments bought two Cambodian hotels for about $35 million from Singapore's Raffles Holdings. The two hotels, the Raffles Hotel Le Royal Phnom Penh and the Raffles Grand Hotel d'Angkor Siem Reap, will continue to be managed by Raffles.

Kingdom Hotel Investments, which is controlled by the Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal, says it plans to increase investments in Asia, particularly in China.

Orascom Construction Industries of Egypt says it will acquire a 50 percent stake in North Korea's Sangwon Cement for $115 million. Orascom wants to raise the plant's capacity to three million tons a year.

Toyota became the world's top selling carmaker in the first half of the year, overtaking U.S. rival General Motors. The Japanese company says it sold 4.71 million units worldwide, compared with the 4.67 million sold by G.M. in the same period.

Another Japanese car company, Honda, says it is increasing production capacity worldwide to match growing demand. Honda says it will open a second manufacturing plant in Thailand and a research and development center in China to design a new vehicle for the fast growing Chinese market.

China's foreign currency reserves have increased this year at a rate of $1.02 million per minute. Foreign currency holdings increased by $266.3 billion during the first half of the year, more than South Korea's total reserves of $250.7 billion. China has also overtaken advanced countries in terms of GDP. In 2005, China overtook the U.K., ranking fourth after the U.S., Japan and Germany and is poised to claim Germany’s third rank next year.

But behind the facade of high-speed growth, China suffers from soaring consumer and real estate prices. Commodity prices will likely increase 4 percent in June, higher than the 3 percent target figure set by the government. Housing prices in large cities like Shenzhen have risen by as much as 50 percent this year alone. The Beijing has raised the interest rates twice in a bid to prevent the economy from overheating. But it is inevitable for China to tighten its monetary policy, including scrapping taxes on interest income and hiking interest rates further.

The discovery could make Korea a leader in the alternative energy industry as the research team plans to double the cell's efficiency and commercialize the technology by 2012.

The team's leader, Lee Kwang-hee of the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, said on Thursday, "Together with Prof. Alan Heeger at the University of California Santa Barbara, we have developed a plastic solar cell with 6.5 percent efficiency. That level of efficiency is sufficiently high for commercial products."

Existing solar cells that use silicon semiconductors cost US$2.30 to generate one watt of electricity, which is three to 10 times higher than the production cost of thermal or hydro power. The new plastic solar cell costs just ten cents per watt.

"The efficiency of converting solar power to electricity should be at least seven percent for commercialization. Many foreign researchers even failed to develop solar cells with more than five percent efficiency," Prof. Lee said.

"We're going to improve the efficiency up to 15 percent, and we're in talks to join hands with domestic electronics companies to market the solar cell by 2012," he said.