By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
The Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO), the country's state-run electric power company, is stepping up its efforts to expand its electricity and natural resources businesses in Indonesia.
KEPCO President and CEO Lee Won-gul met with Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla in Jakarta Sunday to discuss a KECPO-led South Korean consortium's participation in the Southeast Asian country's power generation projects, according to its officials.
Lee expressed the consortium's intention to provide high-quality technologies to help Indonesia address the severe lack of electricity and the state-run firm's preparedness to invest in various projects in the country.
Kalla said that his government would give support for the South Korean consortium on the basis of bilateral cooperation between the two countries, asking for its substantial investment in his country, according to the KEPCO officials.
KEPCO has been leading a consortium, which comprises several private enterprises, to win bids for electric power generation and natural resources development projects in such regions as Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java.
Earlier this month, the company signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Nuansa, an Indonesian firm, for cooperation in development of natural resources in the Kalimantan province.
Last week, the electric power firm set forth its mid- and long-term goal for overseas businesses as part of efforts to emerge as the top electric power company in Asia with annual sales of 3.8 trillion won ($4.1 billion) by the year 2015.
Under the vision ``2015 Asia's Best Value Developer in Energy Service,'' KEPCO has already set up a goal of annual overseas sales of 3.8 trillion won and an overseas power generation capacity of 10,000MW.
Overseas businesses of the state-run company have so far largely focused on thermal power generation and consulting for power transmission and distribution for developing and underdeveloped countries.
But the firm now intends to expand its businesses into such areas as mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and clean development mechanism (CDM) emissions trading among others.
``As for marketing, we would also try to secure such countries as China, Russia and the United States as strategic points in accordance with business portfolios to increase our foreign investment to 10 trillion won,'' a company spokesman said.
He added that the company would also put more efforts for manpower by setting up its ``strategic human resources management'' through recruitment of talents and bold global outsourcing in the future.