Chairman Huh Chang-soo of GS Group. (Photo: GS Group)

GS Group decided to invest 20 trillion won over the next five years, which will cause the group to hire some 21,000 employees, to take care of the businesses the investments will create.

Accordingly, most of South Korea’s top family-run business groups responded to the government’s call for corporate efforts to increase investment and create jobs, except for Lotte, which suffers from the absence of chairman Shin Dong-bin due to his imprisonment, Hyundai Heavy Industries, which is currently carrying out restructuring due to poor market conditions, and Hanjin, which is facing a series of investigations over the owner family's improper behavior and malpractices.

The investment will go to such key areas of the group’s operation including strengthening the existing operations, securing new growth engines, among others, with an average of 4 trillion won to be invested annually, the group said on Aug. 26. The annual average investment is up 25 percent from those invested in the past three years, the group said.

The investment breaks down to 14 trillion won for the petrochemical sector and environmentally-friendly multi-thermal power plants and the development of natural resources sectors, 4 trillion won earmarked for the distribution sector and 2 trillion won for the construction and service sectors.

The investment will also boost the employment for the group by more than 10 percent annually as the 4,200 new employees will be hired every year over the next five years, up from 3,800 in the past three years.

GS Caltex, a key affiliate of the group, will increase funds provided to its cooperative firms, including vendors, by 100 billion won annually. GS Caltex will build an olefin plant in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, near the GS Caltex Oil Refining Complex in Yeosu at the cost of 2.6 trillion won to turn out 70,000 tons of ethylene and 500,000 tons of polyethylene.

GS EPS, a private power company, will focus on the new energy business areas such as biomass, wind and energy storage facilities ESS, among others. GS E&R will also take up the development of the land to build wind power plants and expand its new energy business sectors including solar power and ESS, the energy storage system.

GS Retail will work on expanding the GS 25 Convenience Store operation in Vietnam and GS Supermarket operation in Indonesia while boosting their domestic market shares.

GS Construction will try to strengthen its global competitiveness while GS Global will built a value chain in the energy business from production of crude oil to refining by building support complexes in Pyeongtaik and Dangjin Harbor to diversify its new recycled energy business with new growth.

“We have decided to invest 20 trillion won and employ 21,000 more workers in the coming five years to secure sustainable growth fundamentals, strengthen competitiveness in our core business, join pan-national efforts for innovative growth and perform the role of a corporate citizen that gives hope to society,” said GS in a statement. The blueprint reflects GS Chairman Huh Chang-soo’s management philosophy: “Crisis and opportunities co-exist within changes.”

Executives from GS subsidiaries gathered for a two-day strategy meeting at a resort in Chuncheon, Gangwon. At the meeting, Huh said the group should continue creating future growth drivers through “incessant challenges and bold investment.”
The chairman also described the qualities executives will need to find business opportunities amidst crisis situations.

The qualities include the ability to detect change, the courage to carry out what’s needed to create future growth drivers, and foster human resources that can preemptively cope with change.