Korea’s third-largest conglomerate the LG Group is looking largely to the telecoms and IT hardware sectors for sales and growth following the disposal of several core business units including LG Semiconductor last year. It has set a sales goal of 83 trillion won ($72bn) for 2000, up 12% from earlier projections, and budgeted 6.5 trillion won ($5.65bn) for research and development, marketing and new production facilities.
LG said it will spend 1.6 trillion won ($1.4bn) on digital devices and LCD products, 1.55 trillion won ($1.35bn) on information and communications, 240 billion won ($209m) on telecom components and 110bn won in new drugs and biotechnology. It is looking for 35.6 trillion won ($31bn) in sales from its electronics and communications units and 28.3 trillion won ($24.6bn) from service units, including telecom and services.
After completing a group-wide restructuring this year, we will focus our investments on such key industries as internet, e-commerce, digital TVs, display devices, IMT-2000, antibiotics and cancer-fighting drugs, a group spokesman said. The group’s other remaining core businesses are in financial services, energy and chemicals.
