Hyundai Steel President Ahn Dong-il stressed the need to build a corporate identity and prepare for the future.
In his New Year’s message, President Ahn said, “No one can surely say about how long the current market situation is protracted, and now is a time when we have to pay attention to management condition changes more attentively and ponder how to cope with them.”
“We should explore survival and prepare for the future by building a corporate identity of being a sustainable, eco-friendly steelmaker in 2022, departing from the conventional pursuit of volume growth,” Ahn said.
He proposed strategies such as restructuring the company’s business portfolio to prioritize future automation, building carbon neutral infrastructure and specializing in Korean and overseas business centers.
The following are excerpts of President Kim’s message.
No one can surely say how long the current market situation will be protracted.
In reality, steel product prices are showing a gradual decline generally after peaking in the third quarter of last year, and the management environment surrounding the steel industry may be stuck to an unpredictable one fraught with the paradigm shift of the demand industry, expanded trading restrictions and accelerating carbon neutrality.
Now is the time when management environment changes are watched attentively, and we have to ponder how to cope.
We should explore survival and prepare for the future by building a corporate identity of being a sustainable, eco-friendly steelmaker in 2022, departing from the conventional pursuit of volume growth. This can be realized through the following three strategies.
First, Hyundai Steel should restructure future automation-oriented business portfolio. An industry paradigm shift has been already accelerated.
The automobile industry is at the forefront. A concept toward human beings’ mobility is fundamentally changing beyond the transition of motor energies such as electricity and hydrogen.
Given our industry and responsibilities in accordance with these changes, mobility parts businesses should be expanded and the exploration of value-added advanced materials need to be concentrated.
Second, we have to build carbon neutrality foundation. Carbon neutrality comes to the forefront in conjunction with industry paradigm shift and social value changes. Carbon neutrality emerges as an urgent and serous task coupled with human being’s sustainability.
We have to secure low-carbon material application technologies and build a low-carbon production system, the mission of the times and Hyundai Steel should build foundation to achieve “net zero carbon” by 2050 by ultimately shifting into a carbon neutrality energy regime.
Hyundai Steel has succeeded in developing and mass producing a 1.8GPa premium hot stamping steel for the first time in the world in cooperation of Hyundai Motor/Kia Motors Namyang Raw Material Study Center.
Third, Hyundai Steel should specialize in business centers in Korea and abroad. Supply chain changes, caused by carbon neutrality and trade barriers, has reshaped the conventional industry landscape, ranging from the supply of raw materials in all industries to production, demand markets and logistics. We should closely look at outside and inside situations and explore the best options to correspond to them.
Hyundai Steel has to secure optimal business centers in Korea and abroad and explore new paths suiting them.
I want to stress the value of safety once more. Setting the enforcement of the Act on the Punishment of Serious Disasters aside, safety has been expanded into a core virtue in the whole of society in terms of meaning and value beyond the necessity of corporate management.
I politely ask for all executives and staff members to settle a voluntary safety culture by reviewing whether our every behavior at worksite and daily life complies with values of safety and watching my colleagues’ safety beyond my own.
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