Samsung targets 1m sales of Galaxy Tab

Samsung Electronics on Thursday said it targets global sales of up to 1 million units of its new portable PCs the Galaxy Tab.

“We believe it will be possible to sell 1 million units of the Galaxy Tab by the end of this year,” said Shin Jong-kyun, president of the firm’s mobile business unit during a press event where Samsung unveiled its tablet PC. 

Experts noted that the 1 million unit goals seemed a highly feasible goal. 

Seoul Business Summit Site

http://www.seoulg20businesssummit.org/en/

Pandit, Ackermann, Mittal Among CEOs to Attend Seoul Summit

Pandit, Ackermann, Mittal Among CEOs to Attend Seoul Summit

Aug. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Corporate leaders including Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit, Deutsche Bank AG’s Josef Ackermann and Lakshmi Mittal of ArcelorMittal will meet in Seoul Nov. 10 and 11 for a business summit ahead of the Group of 20 meeting, South Korean event organizers said.

About 100 global chief executive officers will attend to discuss topics including sustainable global economic growth, Sakong Il, chairman of the nation’s presidential committee for the summit, told reporters today.

He said likely participants at the summit include:

Josef Ackermann, Deutsche Bank CEO
Stephen Green, HSBC Holdings Plc chairman
Peter Sands, Standard Chartered Plc CEO
Vikram Pandit, Citigroup Inc. CEO
Stephen Schwarzman, Blackstone Group LP chairman
Joseph Saunders, Visa Inc. CEO
Kenichi Watanabe, Nomura Holdings Inc. CEO
Ma Weihua, China Merchants Bank Co. president
Lakshmi Mittal, ArcelorMittal CEO
Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, Nestle SA chairman
Paul Jacobs, Qualcomm Inc., CEO
Christophe de Margerie, Total SA CEO
Franz Fehrenbach, Robert Bosche GmbH CEO
Anne Lauvergeon, Areva SA CEO
Patrick Kron, Alstom SA CEO
Antonio Brufau, Repsol YPF SA CEO
Antoine Frerot, Veolia Environment SA CEO
S. Gopalakrishnan, Infosys Technologies Ltd. CEO
Ditlev Engel, Vestas Wind Systems A/S CEO
Roger Agnelli, Vale SA CEO
Roberto Poli, Eni SpA chairman
Victor Fung, Li & Fung Ltd. chairman
Marcus Wallenberg, Saab AB, Electrolux AB chairman
Yasuchika Hasegawa, Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. CEO
Chey Tae-won, SK Holdings Co. chairman
Zhao Jianguo, China Southern Power Grid Co. president

Cameron: G20 should be main forum for global cooperation

LONDON (Yonhap News) British Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that South Korea’s hosting of the G20 summit shows the world’s leading economies are seeing the grouping as the “premier forum” for cooperation beyond its original mission of tackling the global economic crisis.

Cameron made the remark in an interview with Yonhap News Agency, stressing that the G20 should be made an “effective post-economic crisis institution” as the world economy picks up.

This week’s meetings in Seoul, set for Thursday and Friday, will be the first step toward that goal, he said.

“It’s clear that a G20 meeting in Seoul is unique,” Cameron said, referring to the fact that South Korea is the first Asian nation as well as the first non-member of the G8 forum of industrialized nations to host a G20 summit.

“This should send a message that all of the G20 whether advanced or emerging economies are committed to using the G20 as the ‘premier forum’ for our global economic cooperation,” he said in the written interview.

Cameron praised the G20 for its role in tackling the global economic crisis, and said it’s time to move forward.

“We G20 leaders together need to take the next step. The G20 is in transition as the global economy shifts from crisis to recovery,” he said. “So it needs to establish itself as an effective post-economic crisis institution in the years to come.

The Seoul summit will be the first step toward this.”

It will be the fifth meeting of the G20 leaders since they first met in late 2008 to discuss joint responses to the crisis that was rocking the world economy at the time. The G20, which includes industrialized and emerging economies, accounts for about 85 percent of the global economy.

How to address trade and current account imbalances between advanced and developing nations will be among the top agenda items at the summit amid a currency dispute between the United States and China. Washington has accused Beijing of keeping the value of its currency, the yuan, too low to make its products cheaper abroad and worsening trade imbalances as a result.

London, Singapore and now Seoul: Korean Eye

After a successful show in London’s Saatchi Gallery and Singapore’s Art House, the contemporary art exhibition “Korean Eye: Fantastic Ordinary” has come to Seoul for an impressive finale, just in time for the G20 summit. 

Korean Eye is a nonprofit foundation set up by David Ciclitira, Chairman of Parallel Media group plc, an international sports and events company, dedicated to presenting Korean contemporary art throughout the world. 

Sponsored by Standard Chartered Bank, the exhibition features works by 12 Korean contemporary artists. The show is currently underway at the Seoul Museum of Art Gyeonghuigung and Standard Chartered’s Jeil Building in Gongpyeong-dong, both in central Seoul. 

The Saatchi Gallery show held in July received great public response and was extended for another week. More than 85,000 visited the exhibition, according to the organizers. 

“A lady I met in Ubon Ratchathani, Summer 2006” by Hong Inyoung  (Korean Eye)

“Korean Eye Contemporary Korean Art,” the first-ever English book on Korean contemporary art which was published by SKIRA, was popular among visitors as well. 

Following last year’s exhibition, “Korean Eye: Moon Generation,” this year’s marks the second. The exhibition is planned to continue for two more years and expand its venues to more international cities including ones in the United Arab Emirates, China and Japan. 

“The Mess of Emotion No.11” by Lee Rim (Korean Eye)

Compared to last year’s exhibition, the participating artists this year, including Bae Joon-sung, Kim Hyun-soo, Shin Mee-kyoung and Bae Chan-hyo, are younger, and their works are more experimental. 

A bigger and more international board of curators including Johnson Chang, director of Hanart Gallery in China, Amelie von Wedel, director of Wedel Fine Art, Serenella Ciclitira, Korean Eye Co-Founder and Honorary Fellow of Royal College of Arts, Rodman Primack, Philips de Pury Chairman, Jiyoon Lee, director of Suum Art Project in Korea, and Lee Dae-hyung, director of H-Zone in Korea, promised a high-quality exhibition. 

“Existing in Costume Beauty and the Beast” by Bae Chan-hyo  (Korean Eye)

“We are showcasing more works by a smaller number of artists this time, so this exhibition will be an opportunity to take an in-depth look at Korean contemporary art,” said Lee Dae-hyung. 

Standard Chartered Bank increased its funding from $60,000 to $600,000 this year for the traveling exhibition. It also announced its plans to support the big scale Korean contemporary art exhibition which is planned during the London Olympics in 2012, using the entire Saatchi Gallery exhibition space.

The exhibition will run through Nov. 13 at Seoul Museum of Art Gyeonghuigung, through Nov. 30 at Standard Chartered’s Jeil Building in Gongpyeong-dong, and from Nov. 18 to 30 at the Korea Foundation Center in Sunhwa-dong, all in central Seoul. For more information, go to www.KoreanEye.org.

About Seoul G20 Business Summit

About Seoul G20 Business Summit

The Seoul G20 Business Summit is a global forum for G20 Heads of State and approximately 120 top business leaders from G20 and some non-G20 countries to collaboratively address “the Role of Business for Sustainable and Balanced Growth.” The Business Summit consists of roundtable sessions with focus on the agenda topics of: 1) Trade and Foreign Direct Investment, 2) Finance, 3) Green Growth and 4) Corporate Social Responsibility. Around 30 chief executives will partake in each of the three parallel one-hour roundtable sessions to engage in active dialogue with G20 delegates. The Business Summit’s main agenda topics are:

Why the Seoul G20 Business Summit?

The Business Summit is an unprecedented cooperative effort between the public and private sectors, where approximately 120 top CEOs will share their concerns with G20 leaders on recent economic developments following the global financial crisis. As an official G20 event, the Business Summit also provides a unique opportunity for business and state leaders to engage in open and direct dialogue. 

The Seoul G20 Business Summit is not a one-time event, but rather a long-term process, which requires months of preparation on the part of the attendees, to produce and achieve a consensus on working group reports, reflecting a wide array of global issues.

Connection with the G20

During the months leading up to the Business Summit, working group reports on global economic issues will be produced and delivered to Finance Ministers, the G20 sherpa and finally, G20 leaders on the day of the event. The Business Summit itself will be held on Nov. 11, a day before the Seoul G20 Leaders’ Summit, and G20 delegates who are participating in the Business Summit will directly hear the voice of the business community, and attend the Leaders’ Summit on the next day.

Through these two channels, the Business Summit aims to underscore and improve the G20’s role as the premier forum for global economic cooperation. It further bolsters the credibility of the G20 Summit by establishing an infrastructure, where the private sector is incorporated into the G20 framework. Korea’s Presidential Committee for the G20 Summit will continue to make an effort in institutionalizing the Business Summit as a vital component of the G20 process. 

A new platform for cooperation of public and private sectors

The Seoul G20 Business Summit, an unprecedented gathering of high-profile CEOs, will create a new platform for coordinating public and private sector cooperation in the promotion of global economic health, its chief organizer said. 

“After the crisis, we learned that in addition to inter-governmental cooperation, the private sector contribution is imperative in promoting investment and employment, which form the pillars of sustainable growth,” Sohn Kyung-shik, Chairman and CEO of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry told The Korea Herald.