Recalling an entrepreneur of dreams and passion

Though it was a very hot summer this year, I had the privilege of spending a few rather cool days in a mountain village in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province. While looking out from my residence over the expressway leading toward the East Coast, I recalled a trip along that route to a cement manufacturing plant in nearby Okkye, which I made nearly half a century ago in the company of a businessman determined to build heavy industries in his country.

I was an employee of Hyundai International when its chairman, Chung In-yung, a legendary figure in Korea’s history of industrialization, asked me to accompany him on a trip to the cement factory. At the time, many of my colleagues were working in the basement of the chairman’s home because our main office building in Seoul and the large machinery plant in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, had been forcibly taken over by the new military government in 1980.

Bitterly shaken we must have been, but Chung was calmly reading a newspaper. He was an avid reader of newspapers, including The Korea Times. Chung himself had been a reporter for the daily Dong-A Ilbo after returning home from studying at a college in Japan.

In 1962, Chung established Hyundai International, which eventually became one of the major subsidiaries of the Hyundai Business Group, led by Chung Ju-yung, his elder brother. Chung In-yung firmly believed that Korea needed to develop heavy industries so that its people could survive and prosper through global competition.

He began cautiously by manufacturing Western tableware for export to Europe and America. He then gradually expanded into the production of automotive parts and components and then into heavy construction equipment — including bulldozers, payloaders, excavators, forklifts, and cranes — through technical licensing arrangements with foreign firms in the 1970s. Eventually, Hyundai International created the nation’s first heavy industrial complex in Changwon.

By 1975, the Changwon plant had become capable of producing a wide range of heavy machinery and equipment, including power plant facilities, and Chung’s dream of establishing Korea’s heavy industrial base finally seemed to have been realized. But a great political upheaval followed the assassination of President Park Chung-hee in 1979. In 1980, Chung was forced to give up his management rights at Hyundai International, when the military rulers implemented measures to restructure the nation’s heavy and chemical industries.

The government takeover of Hyundai International did not put Chung into despair or frustration. Instead, he made even stronger efforts to rebuild his business with what remained after the arbitrary actions. Decades later, we are seeing an industrial giant by the name of HL Mando, which his son, Chung Mong-won, is now leading as a major automotive parts and components company serving markets around the world.

Present and former employees of Hyundai International and HL Mando recently observed memorial services marking the 20th anniversary of Chung In-yung’s death at a church in Seoul that he had attended throughout his life.

Hyundai International was the original developer of Korea’s nuclear power plant system, which is now recognized as a leading global industry, with a growing presence in different parts of the world, and is ready to include the United States in the near future. In this regard, Korea owes much to Chung In-yung, a great pioneer in the development of the nation’s heavy industries.

The writer was a special assistant to Chairman Chung In-yung of Hyundai International Inc. and the Halla Group of companies, today’s HL Mando. He was president of the Marco Polo Hotel of the Halla Business Group.