Kumho Asiana Celebrates 60 Years, Sets Goals

In his speech to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the group’s foundation at its headquarters in Seoul, Park said, “Speed is the controlling weapon in the competition among enterprises in the 21st century.’’

Calling on employees not to be complacent by performances over the past 60 years, he said Kumho Asiana should meet the changing requirements for survival in the business sector. He likened companies to "legal humans," owned by circumstances.

“To survive in the market, we should focus on core businesses for better profitability. We should seek both stability via enhancing current sectors and progress via fresh businesses,’’ Park told employees.

The 10th largest group in Korea plans to concentrate on the construction unit as a main force and foster the logistics and leisure units as the next-generation growth engine. It also projects to raise its airline and tire units as global enterprises.

Before the group chairman unveiled future strategies amid the competitive cutthroat environment, he said he would describe the 60th anniversary as an historic moment.

“Considering that the average history of international companies is 30-40 years and 23 years for domestic companies, our business marked an event in the world’s corporate history,’’ Park said.

Kumho Asiana Group plans to increase annual investment by more than 700 billion won to approach 2 trillion won this year, up 60.4% from 2005. Particularly, it plans to increase investment in fresh sectors by 174% from 315.2 billion won to 863.6 billion won.

Through its active investment project, Kumho is aiming to post 12.84 trillion won in sales, up 15.5% from a year ago, and 1.02 trillion won in operating profits, up 25.2%.

The group is participating in a bidding to take over Daewoo Engineering & Construction.

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