![[Graphic News] Russia overtakes Germany in beer output](/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwimg.heraldcorp.com%2Fnews%2Fcms%2F2025%2F08%2F12%2Fnews-p.v1.20250812.5c7f124a2be242888796baabd80bb05d_T1.gif&w=3840&q=100)
[Graphic News] Russia overtakes Germany in beer output
The shift is largely attributed to Russia's reduced trade with other European nations following the start of the Ukraine war, which spurred a boost in domestic production.
Globally, China led with 34 billion liters, followed by the US (18 billion), Brazil (14.7 billion) and Mexico (14.5 billion), with Russia and Germany ranking 5th and 6th, respectively.
While beer is not on the EU's sanctions list, European beer producers have faced criticism for continuing exports to Russia, which launched a military invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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10 hours ago
- Korea Herald
[Exclusive] Samsung SDI revamps sales under CEO amid push for global orders
Move consolidates customer order management, strengthens push for package deals with global automakers Samsung SDI has recently merged its sales teams into a single unit directly overseen by CEO Choi Joo-sun, in an apparent bid to ramp up battery orders across applications ranging from electric vehicles to energy storage systems. According to industry sources on Sunday, the battery maker affiliated with Samsung Electronics restructured its strategy marketing office earlier this month as part of a broader organizational reshuffle. Previously, the company's sales teams operated under separate battery and materials business divisions. Now, they have been consolidated into a unified strategy marketing office that reports directly to the CEO. 'The elevated status demonstrates the company's strong commitment to driving sales and securing overseas orders,' said an industry source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity. Another source confirmed the change, saying, 'This is a strategic move to consolidate all customer order management functions into a single organization.' Until 2021, Samsung SDI operated the strategy marketing office as an independent division, before splitting it into three business units: one for small batteries, such as cylindrical and pouch lithium-ion cells used in electronic devices and two-wheelers; another for medium- and large-sized prismatic and cylindrical batteries for EVs and ESS; and a third for electronic materials. Even within each unit, marketing activities were reportedly managed separately by application and form factor. 'This shift allows for more streamlined and efficient supply agreements, such as 'package deals' with global OEMs like General Motors and Tesla, which have been seeking multiple battery form factors and applications,' the source added. The restructuring also signals that Samsung SDI is adopting a more aggressive approach to securing corporate orders compared to rivals LG Energy Solution and SK On, which continue to operate separate sales teams under each business division. Samsung SDI's renewed push comes after two consecutive quarterly operating losses, largely due to weak demand for EV batteries from OEMs and reduced profitability in the US ESS market, partly tied to tariffs on automobiles and related components. During its second-quarter earnings call, the company vowed to step up efforts to win global battery orders. 'We have secured orders for cylindrical batteries measuring 46 millimeters in diameter for premium EVs from a leading European global OEM, and we are currently negotiating supply contracts for commercial EVs with a North American startup,' said Kim Jong-sung, executive vice president of Samsung SDI's business management office. He added that the company is also in talks with another major European automaker regarding entry-level EV lithium iron phosphate prismatic batteries, as well as nickel, cobalt and aluminum prismatic cells for commercial vehicles. According to Kim Soo-hwan, head of the mid-to-large battery division, Samsung SDI has so far pursued a premium EV battery strategy but now intends to target the entry-level market as well, reflecting rapid growth in the budget EV segment. In the ESS sector, Samsung SDI plans to convert part of its first joint venture battery cell plant with Stellantis from EV to ESS production. With mass production scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter of this year, Kim emphasized that the company has already secured orders for the line through next year.
Korea Herald
13 hours ago
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Putin wins Ukraine concessions in Alaska but did not get all he wanted
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"For three years, they talked about Russia's isolation, and today they saw the red carpet rolled out to welcome the Russian president to the United States," she said. But Putin's biggest summit wins related to the war in Ukraine, where he appears to have persuaded Trump, at least in part, to embrace Russia's vision of how a deal should be done. Trump had gone into the meeting saying he wanted a quick ceasefire and had threatened Putin and Russia's biggest buyer of its crude oil -- China -- with sanctions. Afterward, Trump said he had agreed with Putin that negotiators should go straight to a peace settlement and not via a ceasefire as Ukraine and its European allies had been demanding -- previously with US support. "The US president's position has changed after talks with Putin, and now the discussion will focus not on a truce, but on the end of the war. And a new world order. Just as Moscow wanted," Olga Skabeyeva, one of Russian state TV's most prominent talkshow hosts, said on Telegram. Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, saying Kyiv's embrace of the West had become a threat to its security, something Ukraine has dismissed as a false pretext for what it calls a colonial-style land grab. The war -- the deadliest in Europe for 80 years -- has killed or wounded well over a million people from both sides, including thousands of mostly Ukrainian civilians, according to analysts. The fact that the summit even took place was a win for Putin before it even started, given how it brought him in from the diplomatic cold with such pomp. Putin is wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of the war crime of deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia denies any wrongdoing, saying it acted to remove unaccompanied children from a conflict zone. Neither Russia nor the US are members of the court. Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's former president and a close Putin ally, said the summit had achieved a major breakthrough when it came to restoring US-Russia relations, which Putin had lamented were at their lowest level since the Cold War. "The mechanism for high-level meetings between Russia and the United States has been restored in its entirety," he said. But Putin did not get everything he wanted and it's unclear how durable his gains will be. For one, Trump did not hand him the economic reset he wanted -- something that would boost the Russian president at a time when his economy is showing signs of strain after more than three years of war and increasingly tough Western sanctions. Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, said before the summit that the talks would touch on trade and economic issues. Putin had brought his finance minister and the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund all the way to Alaska with a view to discussing potential deals on the Arctic, energy, space and the technology sector. In the end, though, they didn't get a look in. Trump told reporters on Air force One before the summit started there would be no business done until the war in Ukraine was settled. It's also unclear how long the sanctions reprieve that Putin won will last. Trump said it would probably be two or three weeks before he would need to return to the question of thinking about imposing secondary sanctions on China, to hurt financing for Moscow's war machine. Nor did Trump -- judging by information that has so far been made public -- do what some Ukrainian and European politicians had feared the most and sell Kyiv out by doing a deal over the head of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskyy. Trump made clear that it was up to Zelenskyy as to whether he would agree -- or not --with ideas of land swaps and other elements for a peace settlement that the US president had discussed with Putin in Alaska. Although as Trump's bruising Oval Office encounter with Zelenskyy showed earlier this year, if Trump thinks the Ukrainian leader is not engaging constructively, he can quickly turn on him. Indeed, Trump was quick to start piling pressure on Zelenskyy, who is expected in Washington on Monday, saying after the summit that Ukraine had to a deal because, "Russia is a very big power, and they're not." "The main point is that both sides have directly placed responsibility on Kyiv and Europe for achieving future results in the negotiations," said Medvedev, who added that the summit showed it was possible to negotiate and fight at the same time. While deliberations continue, Russian forces are slowly but steadily advancing on the battlefield and threatening a series of Ukrainian towns and cities whose fall could speed up Moscow's quest to take complete control of the eastern region of Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian regions Russia claims as its own. Donetsk, some 25 percent of which remains beyond Russia's control, and the Luhansk region together make up the industrial Donbas region, which Putin has made clear he wants in its entirety. Putin told Trump he'd be ready to freeze the front lines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, two of the other regions he claims, if Kyiv agreed to withdraw from both Donetsk and Luhansk, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters. Zelenskyy rejected the demand, the source said. According to the New York Times, Trump told European leaders that Ukrainian recognition of Donbas as Russian would help get a deal done. And the US is ready to be part of security guarantees for Ukraine, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said. Some Kremlin critics said it would be a mistake to credit Putin with too much success at this stage. "Russia has re-established its status and got dialogue with the US," said Michel Duclos, a French diplomat who formerly served in Moscow and who is an analyst at the Institut Montaigne think-tank. "But when you have a war on your hands and your economy is collapsing, these are limited gains." Russian officials deny the economy, which has been put on a war footing and has proved more resilient than the West forecast despite heavy sanctions, is collapsing. But they have acknowledged signs of overheating and have said the economy could enter recession next year unless policies are adjusted. "For Putin, economic problems are secondary to his goals, but he understands our vulnerability and the costs involved," said one source familiar with Kremlin thinking. "Both sides will have to make concessions. The question is to what extent. The alternative, if we want to defeat them militarily, is to mobilise resources more deeply and use them more skilfully, but we are not going down that road for various reasons," the person said.
Korea Herald
14 hours ago
- Korea Herald
Samyang Foods half-year sales break W1tr on overseas growth
Samyang Foods said Sunday that its revenue in the first half of this year surpassed 1 trillion won ($720 million) for the first time, as strong overseas demand pushed sales in the first two quarters past the 500 billion won mark on double-digit growth. In the April-June quarter, the maker of Buldak noodles posted sales of 553.1 billion won and operating profit of 120.1 billion won, up 30 percent and 34 percent, respectively, from a year earlier. Revenue came in higher than the first quarter's 529 billion won, though operating profit edged down from 134 billion won. The company's half-year revenue surged to 1.08 trillion won, a record high. Second-quarter overseas sales climbed 33 percent to 440.2 billion won, led by sustained growth in its two largest markets, China and the US, and a sharp pickup in Europe. Operating profit surpassed 100 billion won for a second straight quarter, keeping margins in the 20 percent range. The company's Chinese unit reported roughly $90 million in sales, up 30 percent from a year earlier, driven by new locally tailored products and expanded online and offline channels. Samyang America generated $94 million in revenue, a 32 percent on-year increase, after widening distribution to mainstream retailers including H-E-B and Sam's Club. Samyang's European unit, established in July 2024, more than doubled revenue from the prior quarter to around $37 million. 'We aim to gradually increase export volumes in the second half, as our second Miryang plant, now online, can help meet rising overseas demand,' a company official said. 'We plan to pursue country-specific strategies to sustain long-term growth, based on our expanded production capacity."
