The SK Group is about advancing into the Chinese market, boldly deciding to move labor-intensive factories to China.In order to guard against possible economic stagnation, it has also decided to cut down on the scale of investment by 10% from the original sum of 4 trillion 600 billion won.The plan was disclosed on the 22nd in the SK headquarter (Seorin-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul), by the director of management reform, CEO Kim Chang-geun.“SKC has set up a video-tape production factory in Fujian, China, while SK chemicals has already established the chemical fabric SKYFLEX Factory in Qingdao. We will move our mature businesses to China,” said CEO Kim.He said, “In order to find businesses with potential in the Chinese market, we have recruited the Chinese native Mr. SyeCheng as CEO of SK China, and hired 13 Koreans and 100 Chinese.” He added that the Chinese businesses would be in full swing by the year 2003.In regards to credit card business, which SK has been continuously promoting, he revealed, “It would be better to go after existing credit card business than to set up a new corporation,” hinting that the company is steering its course to take over credit card business from one of the banks.He said 64 group affiliates, including 7 listed companies, have achieved a total of 25 trillion 430 billion won in sales and netted 860 billion won in the first half of the year. This, he believes is due to management reform.He added that the SK Group will continue with management reform in the latter half of the year, and should achieve its business goals of 55 trillion won in sales and 2 trillion 300 billion won in pretax income.CEO Kim explained that while life science is a potential business for the future, he plans to continue to concentrate on the petrochemical IT industry until the life science industry matures.As for SK Chairman, Choi Tae-won’s succession to the group chairmanship, “The CEO’s and Chairmen of SK Group have the responsibility of finding and rearing a successor. As the head of the group, Chairman Son is training Chairman Choi Tae-won to be the next Group Chairman, assigning various tasks to him.”The Korea Economic Daily (August 23, 2001)Park Ju-byeong