|
Korean electronics companies and carmakers are flocking to Eastern Europe, building factories to make forays into the European market, the world¡¯s largest and moving assembly lines from Western European countries to the former Warsaw Pact nations. Samsung SDI said Sunday it decided to build new plasma display panel assembly plant near the Hungarian capital Budapest to meet increasing demand for PDPs in Europe. Samsung SDI will invest around US$100 million in the new facilities and has started construction with the goal of going into operations next year. Samsung SDI CEO Kim Soon-tak and other executives attended a ceremony marking completion of the frame there last week. Samsung Electronics also plans to invest $500 million in its Galanta, Slovakia digital TV assembly plant. The electronics giant reportedly bought a large industrial site near that area to boost its digital TV production volume there.
LG Electronics is to invest an additional $100 million in digital TV manufacturing facilities in Wroclaw and Mlawa in Poland by 2010 to dramatically increase production there. ¡°Our LCD TV plant being built near Wroclaw will start operation on Sept. 25 and put its first finished TV into the European market next month,¡± LG Electronics¡¯ digital display chief Yoon Sang-han said.
The European market is emerging as the world¡¯s largest in the digital TV field, accounting for a whopping 40 percent of global sales. Demand for digital TVs (some 20 million this year) is poised to grow almost 50 percent a year. Manufacturing facilities there make economic sense in helping to reduce expenses and avoid high tariffs. Digital TVs are large, and manufacturing them in Korea or China and then exporting them to Europe entails huge logistics costs, while Eastern Europe offers labor at a 50 percent lower costs than Western Europe. Assembling products in the local market is also a far better way of maintaining price competitiveness as parts are subject to exemption or suspension of import tariffs of usually more than 10 percent.
The Hyundai Automotive Group has also started building a production belt in Eastern Europe. Subsidiary Kia Motors is to start mass production at a factory in Slovakia capable of turning out 300,000 medium-size cars annually within the year, and Hyundai is to build a new factory in the Czech Republic some 100 km away from Kia¡¯s Slovakia plant.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
|
