A bird’s eye view of the former OCI Plant complex in the Yongin and Hakik No.1 Bloc Region(1.5 million sq. meters) in Incheon where a mini new city with 13,000 new residential houses are to be built. (Photo: HDC)

Vice Chairman and CEO Lee Woo-hyun of OCI. (Photo: OCI)

A former site of the OCI plant complex in the Yongin and Hakik No. 1 Bloc Region in Incheon will be the site for a new mini city with 13,000 residential houses to be built, along with commercial and art facilities on the location.

OCI signed a contract on Oct. 25 with a consortium of builders led by HDC Hyundai Industry Development to develop the area for 2.8 trillion won with the first shovel on the project set to be picked up early next year.

The project will get on the way officially to develop the Yonghyun-Hakik No. 1 Bloc in the region for the first time in 10 years since DCRE was first named to develop the area as the city development business company.

The project would be the first civilian urban development project to be undertaken in line with the Incheon City Development Plan to build apartments and residential houses including officetels in the area as large as 1,546,747 square meters or 467,000 pyongs.

Also to be built in the mammoth project are shops and other commercial facilities in the complex.

Also slated to be built are the Incheon City Fine Arts Hall and a museum to make the area a museum park to elevate the area as a mini new city made of the area for residents, commercial, business and art facilities.

OCI expects to create 60,000 new jobs when the entire project is completed as planned in addition to 33,500 residents to move into the area after a total fund of 5.7 trillion won is spent to complete the entire project in 2025.

The consortium of HDC Hyundai Industry Development will spend200 billion won from early next year to develop the land fore the residential houses and commercial facilities including offictels in eight blocks of buildings with the residential buildings to completed during 2020-2035 totaling 11,821 units.

The consortium also include Hyundai Construction, and POSCO Construction in addition to HDV Hyundai Industrial ‘Development with the consortium named as the priority bidder in April.

OCI is practicing its core values "Chance, Challenge and Change" with the vision of becoming a leading global green energy and chemical company. We improve production capability and secure a future growth engine to respond flexibly to market changes and enhance competitiveness.

And we also make efforts to fulfill our responsibility in the aspects of economy, environment, safety, and society according to our company-wide management strategies to seek sustainable development.

In a board meeting held after the stakeholder meeting on March 26th, OCI (Chairman Woo-sug Baik) appointed Vice Chairman Baik Woosug as Chairman, CEO Woo-Hyun Lee as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer Kim Taekjoong as Chief Executive Officer, respectively. These three will now represent the company in their respective roles.

Many believe these personnel appointments at OCI indicate the company’s intention to focus on internal growth, strengthen capabilities in current businesses and overcome a business crisis caused by a recession in the solar light industry, through a professional management team with already proven management capabilities.

According to analysis, these are corporate level measures designed to actively secure solid future growth engines, including the bio business which was launched in 2018.

President Woo-Sug Baik became the third Chairman of OCI in its 60 years of history, following the late Honorary Chairman Lee Hoe-lim and the late Chairman Lee Soo-young.

He is a professional manager who started his career in 1975 at Oriental Chemical Industries, a former name of OCI, where he worked for 44 years and achieved remarkable results.

After being appointed CEO in 2005, he achieved great results in the launch and development of new businesses, such as the first polysilicon and the solar light energy businesses in Korea, and achieved sales of 3 trillion KRW.

Since 2013, as Vice Chairman he has been in charge of the management of the overall corporation, including OCI and its subsidiaries.