Chairman’s First Move
Hanwha Group Chairman Kim Seung-youn chose a visit to an overseas construction site for his first official move after his comeback to management.
From Dec. 7 to 9, Chairman Kim looked around the new city site of Bismayah, Iraq, the construction order of which Hanwha Engineering and Construction (E&C) obtained, encouraging its executives, staff and subcontractors. Chairman Kim visited Iraq two years and 5 months after his first courtesy visit in July 2012 to to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to discuss additional orders for the restoration project of postwar Iraq.
Chairman Kim had a meeting with Sami Al Araji, chairman of the Iraq National Invest Commission (NIC), and discussed additional business investments.
Chairman Kim visited the staff cafeteria of Hanwha E&C at the site without giving notice on Dec. 8 (local time) and had lunch together with the staff. For dinner, he tried to improve the morale of executives and staff including foreign workers of the company and subcontracting workers by inviting them to eat flatfish sushi shipped from Korea at a banquet.
Chairman Kim praised the workers during dinner by saying, “Many things have really changed. There was nothing here when I first came,” adding, “I give applause for the hard work of the executives and staff members of Hanwha E&C and its subcontractors who are continuing the great challenge of Korean builders in this far away foreign country.”
In particular, Chairman Kim shared his thoughts about its recent acquision of the four affiliate companies of Samsung Group, including Samsung Techwin and Samsung General Chemicals.
He said, “Our group recently accomplished an innovative company M&A and provided the foundation for a great leap,” adding, “Let's go for the goal of world's top company, with new members of Samsung, in major business areas such as the defense and petrochemical industries.”
The Bismayah Project, which is the largest among the single overseas construction projects given to domestic construction companies, is to build a new city for 100,000 families at the site of 18.3 million m2. The total construction value amounts to US$8 billion. Currently 7,450 people are working at the Bismayah construction site including 340 people from Hanwha E&C, 304 from its subcontractors, and 6,800 foreign workers.