LG invests in green areas and hopes to boost revenues from them

Celebrating its 65th birthday yesterday, LG Group said it will invest 15 percent of its total revenues on new, green businesses by 2020.

The green focus will concentrate on four areas: energy (solar batteries, a “smart” grid), electric vehicle parts (batteries), living (LED, OLED, green buildings) and health care.

LG Group said it hopes to make 4 trillion won ($3.5 billion) in revenue from the green business sector this year. Last year revenue’s green revenues were 3 trillion won. By 2015, the figure should exceed 10 trillion won.

To achieve its Green 2020 vision, the group plans to invest a total of 8 trillion won by 2015. This year alone, 4.9 trillion won will be spent in research and development, compared to 4.3 trillion won last year.

LG said over 10,000 new jobs will be created in the new businesses and a cooperative relationship will be established with over 660 small and midsized companies.

“We will create a culture where the function and quality of each and every product with an LG label aims for perfection and therefore deeply moves our customers,” said Koo Bon-moo, LG Group Chairman during LG’s shareholders’ meeting last week.

“We will meet the future by securing and investing exceptional talent in developing vital technology and finding new future businesses,” he said.

Founder Koo In-hwoi started the LG Group in 1947 as a small makeup cream manufacturer in Busan. Last year, LG Group’s total revenues were 142 trillion won.

This year, LG expects revenues to exceed 150 trillion won for the first time and reach 158 trillion won.

Its capital has grown from 3 million won in 1947 to 7.8 trillion won at the end of last year, while assets are now worth 100 trillion won.

The company, which started with only 20 employees, today has more than 210,000.

By Lee Ho-jeong [ojlee82@joongang.co.kr]