Gov’t approves LG Display’s plan to build OLED plant in China

Gov’t approves LG Display’s plan to build OLED plant in China. December. 27, 2017 07:27. by Gun-Huk Lee, Jae-Hee Kim gun@donga.com,jetti@donga.com.

The Korean government has approved LG Display’s plan to invest 1.8 trillion won to build its organic light-emitting diode (OLED) plant in Guangzhou, China after five months of review.

A government panel under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Tuesday that the ministry gave the green light to LG Display’s plan to export OLED manufacturing technology for televisions. But the approval has been made on three conditions: The company should use more domestic materials and equipment; its future investments should be made in Korea; and it should put more effort into preventing technology leaks. LG Display has agreed to the conditions as they are not hard to meet.

OLED manufacturing technology for televisions is one of the nation’s key technologies developed with the support of government subsidies. Under the Act on Prevention of Divulgence and Protection of Industrial Technology, a company should obtain approval from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy in order to build a plant overseas that manufactures the nation’s key technologies. LG Display, in late July, announced its plan to invest 2.6 trillion won to build a plant in Guangzhou, with the display maker owning a 70 percent share.