South Korea's SK Group has revealed it plans to invest KRW 17.5 trillion won (USD14.3bn) in alternative energy and new technologies by 2020, as it seeks to diversify its sprawling engineering and manufacturing business.
According to a Bloomberg report, SK will spend KRW 4.5 trillion won (USD 3.54bn) on new energy technologies including solar cells and biofuels, KRW 4.2 trillion won ( USD 3.4bn) on environmental infrastructure such as smart grids and water treatment plants, and KRW 8.8 trillion won (USD 7.1bn) on other new technologies.
SK Group, which accounts for almost 10 percent of South Koreas total output, hopes the investment plan will create 42,000 jobs by 2020.
The move is partly a response by the firm to a raft of government initiatives aimed at making South Korea a hub for clean-tech development.
The nation is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol as it was considered a developing country at the time, but its carbon footprint is growing fast. Carbon emissions doubled between 1990 and 2005, making it the fastest-growing carbon polluter within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development membership.
However, the country secured plaudits from environmental groups back in 2008 when the government announced that more than 80 percent of its economic stimulus package would be focused on low-carbon projects.
The country also pledged late last year that it would cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases by four per cent on 2005 levels by 2020.
To help meet the target the government has recently announced a raft of green initiatives.
Most notably, South Koreas Ministry of Strategy and Finance recently cut duties on key components used in renewable energy technologies by 50 per cent, and also announced a KRW 27.5 trillion won (USD 24bn) spending programme designed to deploy a smart grid across the country by 2030.
SK Group is the parent company of South Korea's largest oil refiner, SK Energy, and, as a result, will be hard hit by any carbon legislation introduced to ensure the country meets its targets.
The latest green investment programme is not the first time SK Energy has shown an interest in clean technologies.
Last year the company announced it would build the worlds first landfill-fuelled hydrogen station in Nanjido Island, on the outskirts of Seoul, and the subsidiary has also entered into a partnership with domestic steelmaker Pohang Iron and Steel Co as part of a KRW 3.35 trillion won (USD 2.6bn) project to develop clean coal technologies.
SOURCE: APEC VC Korea
