SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won turned his eyes to overseas businesses in the course of retaking his grip on the nation’s third-largest conglomerate, whose key businesses are energy, telecom and semiconductors.

According to the group, the chairman flew to China on Wednesday after wrapping up week-long site visits at home. His swift move was widely accepted as part of his efforts to extend the so-called “field management” to overseas sites.

“He will stay in China for three days to visit key sites and to meet employees and global partners there,’’ the group said in a press release.

The first item on his agenda in China on Wednesday afternoon was to visit the Chinese site of SK hynix, the group’s semiconductor business arm, located in Wuxi, southern Jiangsu province.

The plant is the most strategically important overseas site for the world’s second-largest memory chip maker in that it is responsible for more than 50 percent of the company’s dynamic random access memory chip production. While staying in Wuxi, the SK chief plans to meet government officials to discuss ways to expand business partnerships, the group added.

On Friday, he will move to Wuhan, Hubei Province, for an on-site trip to the joint venture firm between SK Global Chemical and state-run China Petroleum & Chemical Corp., better known as Sinopec.

The petrochemical joint venture producing ethylene was a success story just a year after the start of commercial operations last year, posting in the black in operating profits, the company said.

SK group expects the production site to advance into a hub production site for the globalization of its petrochemical business. 

The chairman also will visit Taiwan to check on the business agendas of FSK Holdings, the joint venture with the group’s holding company SK Corp., and Taiwan-based Hon Hai Group before coming back to Korea in early September, the group added.

FSK Holdings, established last May, has focused on finding business opportunities in the information technology sector.

The group hinted that the SK chief will make more on-site trips abroad in the latter part of the year.

”The chairman is expected to spur global businesses to find new growth engines for the group, and so contribute to the restoration of the economy as he promised to stay more than half of the year at overseas sites,” Lee Man-woo, the head of SK Group‘s public relations team, said.

The 54-year-old chairman has pushed for field management to catch up with his three-year long absence. He came back to the group two weeks ago after he was released from prison by a special presidential pardon on Aug. 14.

By Seo Jee-yeon  (jyseo@heraldcorp.com)