Seoul, July 27 (IANS) South Korean stocks turned lower late on Monday morning as big chip shares lost ground despite eased Middle East tensions.

After opening 1.73 percent higher, the benchmark Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) shed 55.63 points, or 0.83 percent, to 6,634.99 as of 11:20 a.m.

Foreign investors sold nearly 1.7 trillion won, offsetting a combined 1.6 trillion won worth of buying by retail and institutional investors, reports Yonhap news agency.

The United States has suspended its attacks on Iran since Friday, easing military tensions in the region that had heightened over the past two weeks.

Iran also stopped conducting counterattacks, while holding talks with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, South Korean and U.S. tech companies agreed to pursue a series of cooperation projects worth a combined US$950 billion during an artificial intelligence (AI) summit hosted by the South Korean government over the weekend.

In Seoul, however, tech shares traded lower.

Top-cap Samsung Electronics fell 0.6 percent, and SK hynix declined 0.8 percent.

Samsung Electro-Mechanics, an electronic component affiliate of Samsung Electronics, decreased 1.06 percent, and SK Square, the parent of SK hynix, slumped 5.59 percent.

Leading oil refinery SK innovation plunged 9.15 percent, and defence giant Hanwha Aerospace tumbled 8.17 percent.

The Korean won was trading at 1,468.1 won against the U.S. dollar as of 11:20 a.m., down 9.6 won from the previous session.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s chipmaking sector accounted for more than 10 percent of the country’s manufacturing output in 2024 driven by growing demand for artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure following the advent of ChatGPT, a central bank report showed on Monday.

The semiconductor sector’s production reached 210.8 trillion won ($143.9 billion) in the one-year period, making up 10.1 percent of the country’s total manufacturing output, according to a report published by the Bank of Korea (BOK).

—IANS

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