Jan. 18 (NBD) -- LG Chem, Korea's largest chemical company, announced on Wednesday its plan to build a new polarizer production facility in Guangzhou, capital of South China's Guangdong Province.

The 300-million-U.S-dollar polarizer plant is the first of its kind in the southern area of China.

On the same day, Huangpu District of Guangzhou issued the country's first IAB (information technology, artificial intelligence and the biomedical industry) industrial policy, in a move to build a world-class IAB industrial cluster in the city by 2022.

LG continues to expand its capacity

NBD learned at the news briefing that the polarizer factory is expected to be completed and put into operation in 2019, generating an output value of about 2 billion yuan (310.6 million U.S. dollars) after reaching the design capacity.

As one of the key materials that constitute the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display), the polarizer, an optical film, transmits the light emitted from the LCD's backlight in a single direction while blocking the light coming from other directions.

LG Chem boasts its competitiveness as the largest manufacturer of large-sized polarizer in the global market.

Data from the official website of LG Chem shows that the company in 2016 posted approximately 20.66 trillion Won (19.3 billion U.S. dollars) in sales, up 2.2 percent year on year and reaped a net margin of 1.28 trillion Won (1.2 billion U.S. dollars), increasing by 11.5 percent compared with the previous year.

Hong Qian, deputy head of Huangpu District, Guangzhou, told NBD that the polarizer project will contribute to building Guangzhou a world-class hub of display panels.

It is noteworthy that the polarizer, as one of the three major materials for LCD, takes up around 10 percent of the total cost of a display panel.

Besides, the investment into the display panels over the past several years has been driving the demand for polarizer. Globally speaking, the polarizer is mainly supplied by China, Japan and South Korea.

In October last year, LG Display was approved by the South Korean government to build an OLED panel manufacturing plant in Guangzhou, aiming to expand its production capacity of OLED panels.

Hong said to NBD that to date, LG Chem, LG Display and LG Electronics have invested to build production facilities in the city, forming an industrial cluster worth 100 billion yuan (15.5 billion U.S. dollars).


Photo/VCG

City eager to enhance IAB industries

LG projects landed in Guangzhou accord with the industrial upgrading scheme of the city.

Back in March, 2017, the Guangzhou municipal government put forward "IAB Plan", with the purpose of nurturing a world-class IAB industrial cluster in the city by 2022.

The plan also depicts the blueprint that the scale of the leading IAB industry in the city should surpass 1 trillion yuan (155.3 billion U.S. dollars) by 2022.

Ever since the announcement of the "IAB Plan", Guangzhou has attracted considerable foreign investment.

Most recently on Tuesday (Jan. 16, 2018), Guangzhou Xiangxue Pharmaceutical announced that the company has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with GE Healthcare.

Under the agreement, GE Healthcare will assist Xiangxue Pharmaceutical to construct the industrial preparation platform for cell therapy and the center for clinical translation in Huangpu District and Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone.

Moreover, an 800-million-U.S.-dollar biological science park which was situated in Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone and invested by GE will be in trial operation in early 2018, GE Healthcare Greater China President and CEO Duan Xiaoying told NBD. The park is one of the key projects in the city's "IAB Plan".

To prop up the IAB industries further, Huangpu District, Guangzhou released the country's first policy centering the leading IAB industries on Wednesday (Jan. 17, 2018).

Li Yaoyao, deputy director of the policy research office of Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone said to NBD that Huangpu District, as a main driving force and influential front in developing IAB industries in Guangzhou, aims to achieve a total output value of 800 billion yuan (124.1 billion U.S. dollars) for the IAB industries.

Currently, the output value of new-generation information technology in the district accounts for 80 percent of the city's total and the figure for artificial intelligence stands at 70 percent, Li added.


Email: gaohan@nbd.com.cn

Editor: Gao Han