三星作为韩国最大的工业集团，今天发表声明说，要在2020年之前投资5个新的领域，其中对太阳能电池的投资额为6万亿韩元。
李健熙，三星电子的主席说，现有资源的消耗力度和环境保护的刻不容缓都在考验着整个国际社会。
韩国，作为亚洲第四大原油进口国，计划在今年7月投资107万亿韩元来提高能源的利用率，以减轻对化石燃料的依赖。
May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Samsung Group unveiled a 23.3 trillion won ($21 billion) spending plan to expand into health care, solar batteries and other markets benefiting from rising government investment in renewable energy and the environment.
South Korea’s biggest industrial group, with businesses ranging from semiconductors to shipbuilding, aims to invest in five new areas by 2020, Samsung Electronics Co., the group’s electronics unit, said in a statement today. The spending includes 5.4 trillion won in batteries for electric vehicles and 6 trillion won in solar cells, Samsung said, without providing details on specific plans.
The group, accounting for more than 20 percent of South Korea’s gross domestic product, said it expects annual revenue from the five businesses to reach 50 trillion won by 2020. Lee Kun Hee, who returned as chairman of Samsung Electronics in March, said today that depleting resources and environmental protection presented “challenges to the global community.”
Samsung already makes rechargeable batteries and light- emitting diodes, and has a “good chance” to expand into health care, David Kwon, an analyst at Daewoo Securities Co., said by phone today.
Samsung said today it will seek opportunities in the market for “biosimilars,” copies of expensive drugs made from living organisms.
Environment, Biotech, Energy
The biotechnology “industry carries a high risk and it takes a long time to develop, but Samsung is looking at it from a longer term perspective,” Kwon said today.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of memory chips and liquid-crystal displays, aims to raise annual sales to $400 billion by 2020 by adding businesses related to the environment, biotechnology and energy.
Today’s announcement also includes plans to spend 1.2 trillion won in health-care equipment, 2.1 trillion won in biopharmaceuticals and 8.6 trillion won in light-emitting diodes, which consume less power than conventional fluorescent lights.
South Korea, Asia’s fourth-biggest crude oil importer, said in July it plans to invest 107 trillion won over the next five years in improving energy efficiency to help cut reliance on fossil fuels and boost economic growth.
Samsung Electronics last month said it would “substantially” boost spending this year from its January plans to invest 5.5 trillion won on semiconductors, compared with 4.5 trillion won in 2009, and about 3 trillion won on liquid crystal displays.
Samsung Group had 67 units with combined assets of 192.8 trillion won as of April 1, according to South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission.
--Editors: Dave McCombs, Chana Schoenberger.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kevin Cho in Seoul at kcho2@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Young-Sam Cho at ycho2@bloomberg.net
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