LG Chem aims to become one of the global top five firms in the chemical industry by 2025, with 3.8 trillion won ($3.3 billion) of spending on capital expenditure and research and development for its key businesses this year.
 

The company set aside 2.76 trillion won for capital expenditure and 1 trillion won for research and development to further strengthen its four units -- base materials, electronics, life science and battery.

LG Chem plans to increase the production capacity of high-margin materials to make its base materials unit -- its mainstay -- more lucrative. The production capacity of high-value synthetic resins and elastomers will increase to 290,000 tons by 2018.

The carbon nanotube plant built early this year with an investment of around 25 billion won will be capable of producing 400 tons annually. LG plans to fully operate the plant by 2018 and is considering building additional plants in 2019.

As for its information and electronics unit, LG Chem is strengthening new businesses, such as water treatment and functional films. It landed a contract to supply 300,000 tons of seawater filters to the Egyptian water treatment company Metito in June.

LG Chem also plans to strengthen its profile in three key areas of its life science segment -- metabolic disease, bio medicine and vaccine. It plans to foster its diabetes drug Zemigloa to become a leading product in the global industry. Zemiglo, which it developed for nine years with an investment of 47 billion won, generated 55.7 billion won in sales last year.