The world’s largest semiconductor production factory is to be built in Korea. Samsung Electronics held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus in the Godeok International New Town industrial complex in Pyeongtaek City, Gyeonggi-do (Gyeonggi Province), on May 7.

The new semiconductor manufacturing line in Pyeongtaek will be built over some 2.89 square kilometers, equal to the size of about 400 soccer fields. Samsung will first use 790,000 square meters of this area to build infrastructure and the semiconductor facility itself. To this aim, the company will make an investment totaling KRW 15.6 trillion between now and 2017.



At the ceremony, President Park said, “Samsung Electronics is one of the leading global companies of Korea, which has been part of the, 'Miracle on the Hangang River,' ever since its foundation in 1969. The construction of the Samsung Electronics Pyeongtaek Campus shows the firm's entrepreneurship, which makes investments in a future-looking manner to bolster our future competitiveness and not settling for past rates of growth.”

She added that the government will support firms so that they can create new economic growth engines in high value-added sectors, such as system semiconductors, and remove regulations to help them enter into such new markets in the earlier stages.

For future industries and for further economic growth, President Park urged enterprises, “to display an entrepreneurial spirit of challenge and passion, to look to the future and increase investments in a bold manner.” She asked for companies to, “decisively penetrate into new, high value-added industries with a spirit of challenge."

The president also called for them to make efforts to strengthen their competitiveness in the so-called "industrial eco-system," where firms can achieve growth and development together.

By Yoon Sojung
Korea.net Staff Writer
Photos: Cheong Wa Dae
arete@korea.kr