The ambitious investment plans are expected to clear years of uncertainty over
the group’s future business direction. Samsung, which is South Korea’s
biggest conglomerate, generates one fifth of the country’s exports.

The new investment plans will help Samsung challenge rivals such as General
Electric, Philips Electronics and Sanyo Electric in the long term.

The strategic investment decision comes less than two months after Lee Kun-hee
returned to the chairmanship of Samsung after receiving a presidential
pardon for corruption. He argued that Samsung could fall into a crisis
without a complete overhaul its business model.

Samsung on Tuesday identified five businesses - solar cells, rechargeable
batteries for hybrid cars, light emitting diode (LED) technology,
biopharmaceuticals and medical equipment - as its future growth drivers. It
expects these businesses to generate $44bn of annual sales and create 45,000
new jobs by 2020.

"Governments around the world are now investing in green industries to
address the issues of depleting energy resources…We must move ahead
decisively to take this opportunity while other global companies hesitate,"
Mr Lee told the presidents of the group's major units.

Main investment areas
Still, the three main investment areas are not completely new to the companies
in the Samsung group. About Won11,400bn will be invested in solar cells and
rechargeable batteries produced by Samsung SDI, while Won8,600bn will be
spent to expand S-LCD's light emitting diode business.

The group will also invest about Won3,300bn on new businesses such as "biosimilars"
- drugs that are close enough copies of biologics to be considered the same
thing - and medical devices.

Samsung Electronics last year overtook Hewlett-Packard as the world's largest
technology company by sales. The company is now the world's largest maker of
memory chips and flat panel screens as well as being the second-largest
producer of mobile phones.

Bribery scandal
Mr Lee, who stepped down two years ago amid a bribery scandal, indicated in
March that Samsung's future would be tough, predicting that most of the
group's current businesses and products would disappear in 10 years.

His warning came as Samsung Electronics was hitting a boom as it benefited
from the dramatic recovery in global chip prices and LCD TV demand. The
company built up market share even during last year's downturn by investing
heavily in its main business to extend its lead over rivals. It posted a
seven-fold increase in first-quarter operating profit to Won4,405bn on sales
of Won34,638bn.

Samsung last month said it would substantially increase spending on
semiconductors to ride on the chip sector's sharp recovery. Shares of
Samsung Electronics were down 0.62 per cent at Won799,000 at midday.

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