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Feb. 5 (Asia Today) — Merchants in Seoul’s Hyoja-dong neighborhood say the long-anticipated economic boost from President Lee Jae-myung’s return to the Blue House has failed to materialize, while commercial areas around the former presidential office in Yongsan continue to struggle.

Restaurants near the Blue House, once hopeful that an influx of staff and visitors would revive lunchtime demand, report thinning crowds and declining sales.

“Business is slow these days,” said Kim Kwang-jae, 64, who runs a Korean restaurant in Hyoja-dong, Jongno District. Despite offering discounted meals to Blue House staff and police officers, Kim said daily customer numbers hover around 70, far below expectations.

When the Blue House was open to the public, his restaurant served about 150 customers a day, providing a brief lifeline to nearby eateries and market stalls. That traffic evaporated after public access was suspended last August, merchants said.

Hope briefly returned after President Lee announced plans to resume work at the Blue House. On Jan. 29, he instructed staff to eat outside the compound every Wednesday in an effort to support local businesses. Wednesday marked the first day after the directive took effect.

The scene on the ground, however, told a different story.

Jeon Sun-myeong, owner of a dumpling shop in nearby Tongin Market, said customer numbers have fallen since the return to the Blue House. “I can’t even prepare dumplings in advance anymore,” she said, noting that the impact is especially severe for low-margin, high-volume businesses.

An official from the Tongin Market Merchants’ Association said frequent protests near the Blue House have further reduced foot traffic. Demonstrators occupying roads near market entrances have discouraged visitors, the official said, adding that declining orders are also hurting suppliers who provide ingredients to nearby restaurants.

A similar downturn is unfolding in Yongsan, which had benefited from increased activity after the presidential office moved there in 2022.

Around lunchtime in the Hangang-ro area, restaurant-lined alleys stood largely empty, with rows of mourning wreaths protesting the government’s Jan. 29 housing supply measures adding to the somber atmosphere.

“Our customers were mostly office workers,” said Jin Seon-il, 64, who has operated a knife-cut noodle restaurant in the area for 23 years. “Since the office moved back to the Blue House, the drop in lunchtime customers has been immediate.”

While nearby Yongridan-gil remains popular with younger crowds, Jin said most visitors favor cafes and bars over traditional eateries. “Rents rose during the presidential office era, but customers are gone,” he said.

Shin Deok-soon, 67, who runs a gamjatang restaurant, said she relocated to Yongsan three years ago to capture lunchtime demand tied to the presidential office. After Lee’s return announcement, she said sales steadily declined, forcing her to lay off all employees at the start of this year and raise menu prices.

A local real estate agent said commercial rents in Yongsan surged two to three times following the presidential office relocation and have yet to come down. “With rents staying high and sales falling, more shops are closing,” he said.

Office worker Kim Min-gyu, 27, said several once-popular eateries have already shut down. “A year ago, you had to line up at lunch,” he said. “Now you can walk right in.”

The Yongsan Small Business Association has urged lawmakers to adopt measures to revive the area. An association official said rising rents and falling foot traffic are placing severe strain on merchants and called for practical steps to ease rent burdens and draw customers back.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260205010002050

Dutch firm says it expects strong growth in 2026, countering fears of an investment bubble.

Tech giant ASML has reported a quarterly record in orders of its chip-making equipment, boosting hopes for the sustainability of the artificial intelligence boom and countering fears of an investment bubble.

The Dutch firm said on Wednesday that it booked orders worth 13.2 billion euros ($15.8bn) in the final quarter of 2025, more than half of which were for its most advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines.

ASML logged orders worth 7 million euros during the same period the previous year.

Net sales came to 9.7 billion euros in the October-December period, ASML said, taking sales for all of 2025 to 32.7 billion euros.

Net profit for the year was 9.6 billion euros, up from 7.6 billion euros in 2024.

The Veldhoven-based company forecast net sales of between 34 billion euros and 39 billion euros in 2026.

ASML Chief Executive Officer Christophe Fouquet said the company’s chip-making customers had conveyed a “notably more positive assessment” of the market situation in the medium term based on expectations of strong AI-related demand.

“This is reflected in a marked step-up in their medium-term capacity plans and in our record order intake,” Fouquet said in a statement.

“Therefore, we expect 2026 to be another growth year for ASML’s business, largely driven by a significant increase in EUV sales and growth in our installed base business sales.”

Fouquet also said the company would cut about 1,700 jobs, most of them at the leadership level, amid concerns work processes had become “less agile”.

“Engineers in particular have expressed their desire to focus their time on engineering, without being hampered by slow process flows, and restore the fast-moving culture that has made us so successful,” Fouquet said.

The proposed cuts, which would affect positions in the Netherlands and the United States, represent about 4 percent of ASML’s 44,000-strong global workforce.

ASML holds an effective monopoly on the production of machinery used by TSMC, Samsung Electronics, and Intel to make the most advanced AI chips.

The company sells only about 50 of its extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines each year, with each unit costing about 250 million euros.

ASML’s share price surged on Wednesday, with its stock up nearly 6 percent as of 9.30am local time.

“ASML’s latest results suggest the AI boom is still in full swing, with strong orders and a bullish outlook,” said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“However, job cuts in the business would suggest it is not getting carried away with the strength of current trading.”

ASML’s restructuring “looks like a sharper focus on efficiencies and different ways of working, rather than saying there isn’t enough work for existing staff to do,” Mould added.

“Nonetheless, it’s a sign that the AI craze might be trying to catch its breath.”

Tech giants such as Meta, OpenAI, Nvidia and Oracle have poured billions of dollars into AI in the expectation that the technology will deliver dramatic changes to how people work and live.

Global AI-related spending is forecast to hit $2.53 trillion in 2026 and $3.33 trillion in 2027, according to projections by technology insights firm Gartner.

The investment boom has propelled the US stock market to record highs, stoking concerns about the sustainability of huge spending on a technology whose promise remains largely unrealised.

Jan. 27 (Asia Today) — South Korea’s Hanwha Group is mounting an unusually broad industrial and technology campaign to strengthen its bid for Canada’s multibillion-dollar next-generation submarine program, extending its proposal well beyond shipbuilding to include steel, artificial intelligence and space-based infrastructure.

Hanwha said Monday that its defense units are offering what it described as a comprehensive “K-defense package” tailored to Canada’s emphasis on local industrial participation and economic offsets under its Canadian Patrol Submarine Project.

At the Korea-Canada Industrial Cooperation Forum held in Toronto on Sunday, Hanwha Ocean and Hanwha Systems signed memorandums of understanding with Canadian partners across five sectors: steel, AI, satellite communications, space technology and electro-optics.

As part of the effort, Hanwha Ocean agreed to cooperate with Algoma Steel, Canada’s largest steel producer. The agreement includes plans to invest about 345 million Canadian dollars to help establish a stable steel supply chain in Canada for submarine construction and long-term maintenance, repair and overhaul work, contingent on winning the contract. Hanwha said the approach goes beyond material procurement by directly supporting local manufacturing capacity.

In AI, Hanwha Ocean and Hanwha Systems signed a three-party MOU with Canadian startup Cohere to jointly develop specialized AI tools for shipbuilding, including production planning, design and manufacturing, as well as submarine system integration and operations. Cohere, which has received backing from companies such as Nvidia and Oracle, is valued at more than $7 billion, according to industry estimates.

Hanwha Systems also reached agreements with Telesat on low-Earth orbit satellite communications and with MDA Space and PV Labs on defense-related satellite and electro-optical technologies. The companies plan to link satellite platforms with Hanwha’s defense electronics to provide secure communications, command and control and data resilience for submarine operations.

The submarine bid has drawn strong backing from the South Korean government. Senior officials, including Presidential Chief of Staff Kang Hoon-sik and Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Kim Jeong-kwan, accompanied the delegation to Canada in what Seoul described as full-scale “sales diplomacy.” The government has designated the submarine project a national strategic export and proposed expanding cooperation to other sectors such as automobiles and hydrogen energy.

Consulting firm KPMG estimated that Hanwha’s proposed industrial cooperation framework could generate more than 200,000 person-years of employment in Canada between 2026 and 2040, a projection seen as a powerful selling point in a country where job creation and regional economic development are key political priorities.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260127010012673

Former European Central Bank president Mario Draghi will attend an informal meeting of European Union leaders at the invitation of European Council President António Costa, who is looking to accelerate the implementation of his competitiveness report.

The retreat will take place on 12 February and will focus on boosting the European economy. Former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta will also participate in the gathering.

Draghi and Letta penned two influential reports on the EU single market and competitiveness in 2024.

In an interview with Euronews from New Delhi, where the EU signed a major trade deal with India, Costa said the retreat will serve to kickstart a cross-institutional debate on how to strengthen the European economy and implement their reform agenda.

“I invited Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta to join us as we take stock of what we’ve done but also look at what we need to deliver,” Costa said.

“We need to create renewed momentum and give a new impetus” to their call for reforms.

“I expect leaders to give clear political guidance to the Commission and the Council as they did last year on defence and security,” he added. “This time, for the single market.”

Costa has held a series of informal meetings bringing together the 27 leaders to brainstorm without the formalities of a European summit, which usually sees a stricter agenda and looks for compromise to deliver unanimous conclusions.

The retreat format, he argues, allows for more open discussions. Last year, leaders met alongside NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss European security and defence. By inviting Draghi and Letta, Costa hopes to reinstate momentum around their recommendations published in 2024.

Last year, the European Commission’s efforts focused on reducing red tape and cutting bureaucracy pegged to excessive EU regulation. While pushing for simplification of existing rules, analysts suggest the executive is not doing enough to push forward actual reforms in line with the recommendations of the two reports.

A report by the European Policy Innovation Council published in September last year suggested that only 11% of the recommendations listed in the Draghi report had been implemented in its first year even as the Commission referred to it as its economic compass.

Draghi’s attendance could serve to sharpen minds as the former ECB president is highly influential in diplomatic circles, the European capitals and the EU institutions where his speeches are closely monitored.

Draghi has repeatedly called for the bloc to work as a true union and called for a “pragmatic federalist” approach in a changing world.

Draghi has also expressed support for joint borrowing by EU member states to finance large projects of common interest such as security and defense, and called for the integration of the European capital markets to attract and scale up investments.

Watch the full interview with Council President António Costa on The Europe Conversation on Euronews on 28 January.