Lotte Chemical to expand Johor ops

GLOBAL petrochemical company Lotte Chemical Corp has committed to invest US$450 million (RM1.98 billion) to expand its operations in Johor on top of its previous investment of US$2 billion for on its Tanjung Langsat and Pasir Gudang plants.

This follows the International Trade and Industry Ministry’s 48-hour trade and investment mission to South Korea, which ended on a high note yesterday.

Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said Lotte Chemical Corp, together with two other prominent South Korean companies, submitted letters of intent yesterday to set up bases in Malaysia.

“The investment is meant to expand their plants and improve its production capacity from three million tonnes of chemicals now by another 500,000 tonnes.

“It will see an increase of 20 per cent in capacity and effectively make it one of their biggest operations outside of South Korea.

“Amorepacific Corp, South Korea’s number one cosmetics company, will invest US$100 million here. They have bought a piece of land spanning 10.11ha in Nusajaya, Johor to make Malaysia their base and set up a manufacturing plant for their products to penetrate the Asean region.

“Coway Co Ltd too, through a letter of intent, stated its interest in producing its purifier in Malaysia,” said Mustapa when speaking of the outcome of the mission to South Korea, which was jointly organised with the Malaysian Investment and Development Authority and Malaysian External Trade Development Corp.

Mustapa said the geopolitic of Malaysia, its stability and zero natural disaster risks are the pulling factors for South Korean companies to not only invest, but also make it the base of their businesses and gateway to enter the Asean market.

Based on his numerous meetings with various local companies to mark the mission, Mustapa concluded that there was a strong interest from South Korea to venture into the Malaysian market.

Attracting South Korea’s small and medium enterprises (SMEs) was one of the main agenda of the mission where Mustapa held a round table meeting with more than 20 companies specialising in various sectors.

During the meeting, Mustapa said Malaysia was interested in South Korean expertise.

“We are interested in the automation and robotics industries, which South Korea has strength in. We want to improve productivity of Malaysian SMEs so we encourage partnerships and joint ventures between companies from both countries,” he said.

Mustapa also delivered a presentation at a seminar on “Business Opportunities in Malaysia” to a crowd of 300 from the local business community.