Chey Tae-won

By Park Si-soo

SK Group shipped a record amount of goods abroad in the first quarter of the year, totaling $14.18 billion, up 77.1 percent from a year ago, the corporation said Monday.

This is largely attributable to increasing overseas demand for petrochemicals and semiconductors, according to SK officials. The group owns a petrochemical unit and has reinforced its corporate earnings structure after acquiring Hynix Semiconductor in March.

The amount is nearly 70 percent of its entire sales of $19.47 billion during the same period and accounted for roughly 10 percent of Korea’s total exports during the first three months, the group said in a statement.

The total sales are a combination of sales performances of the group’s seven manufacturing units ㅡ SK Innovation, SK Energy, SK Chemicals, SK Global Chemicals, SK Lubricants, SKC, and SK hynix.

If this bullish market continues, the group said its yearly exports will reach a record high of $55 billion, up from $40.2 billion last year.

SK Innovation generated more than 11 trillion won in exports during the first quarter by selling value-added petrochemical products and carrying out overseas oil development projects, the group said.

SK Lubricants, which produces a wide range of lubricating oils, generated nearly 87 percent of its sales from exports and this was true for a whopping 93 percent for SK hynix, it said.

“The slowing economic development of major overseas markets, including China, has badly affected the country’s exports. But SK Group is trying hard to overcome the difficult times with value-added petrochemical products and other cutting-edge chemical goods.”

It said SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won has played a pivotal role in mapping out the group’s global strategy.

“Chey has underscored aggressive investment to make the group have an export-driven earnings structure,” an SK official said.

Following his instructions, the group recently announced that it will invest nearly 19.1 trillion won in developing new businesses, nearly double the budget for last year.