“Let’ s maintain the proud 88-year long history of Samyang,” said Chairman Kim Yoon on Oct. 12 to some 180 officers and staff of the company as they reached the top of Sobak Mountain in celebration of the group’s 88th anniversary, which fell on Oct. 1.

After they hiked 10.6 km to the top of the famous mountain in the eastern region of the Korean Peninsula, the Chairman said in order for Samyang to be prepared for its future growth, all officers and staff should have one mind and one ideal to challenge any difficulties ahead and change if they have to.

The late founder Kim Yon-soo launched Samyang in 1924 and started a sugar mill, a polyester textile mill in 1969, and expanded to other industrial fields like chemicals, food, medicine, industrial raw materials, equipment, and international trading thereafter.

In 2004, the textile sector was spun off to form a joint-venture, Hubis Co., and in celebration of the 80th anniversary, Samyang put up a new vision calling for “an enterprise to make life affluent and convenient,” a new corporate ID, and adopted chemicals, food, and medicine as core growth engines.

Last year, the Samyang Group set up a holding company to give independent authority to its affiliates. This year, the construction of a bisphenol A plant will be completed to finish the vertical order of its chemical business sector.

In 2015, Samyang sees itself more committed than ever to the continuing growth of its three key businesses (chemicals, food, and pharmaceutical drugs) through the strategy of selection and concentration. It is also determined to secure strong market leadership through an innovation and differentiation strategy, and to challenge itself to undertake new businesses so as to build new growth engines. 

In the chemical field, Samyang will focus on high-value-added, high-growth materials and will secure sustainable growth platforms and global manufacturing foundations so as to create bigger customer value. Toward these ends, Samyang will push to expand its capacity to manufacture polycarbonate, to globalize its engineering plastics compounding business, and to develop new high-value-added materials.

In the food field, Samyang will drive its B2C food and restaurant businesses forward in addition to its existing business fields, aiming to become the number one food and service innovator in the country. Moreover, Samyang will establish a Foodstuffs and Consumer Commodity Business Unit so as to develop upscale health and wellness products, thereby helping improve its customers’ health. Further, it will expand its confectionery ingredients/restaurant food ingredients distribution and restaurant businesses and will start an overseas plantation business. 

In the drug and biotechnology field, Samyang will diversify its businesses to improve profitability, and it will expand its business scale in a bid to become an innovative specialty pharmaceutical company. Samyang also vows to step up the competitiveness of its suture business, to expand its product portfolio in its medical-supplies business, to focus on the development of anti-cancer drugs, and to diversify its biotechnology business. 

In the new-business field, Samyang will continue to explore business areas with high market prospects so as to put them in place as its growth engines after 2015. Toward this end, it will step up its capability to provide customer-oriented products and services through R&D innovation efforts in order to secure sustainable competitiveness. 

To achieve these visions, Samyang pledges to endeavor to make itself even more trustworthy, to challenge itself to attain greater goals, to innovate itself, and to foster greater talent, as well as to transform its corporate culture so as to include the pursuit of customer-oriented and performance-based values that are necessary for new growth.