Invest KOREA

(Xinhua=NEWSIS) Samsung Electronics on Thursday held a groundbreaking ceremony to build the world's largest semiconductor complex in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.

The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by President Park Geun- hye, Samsung's Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, CEO Kwon Oh-hyun and 600 other officials from the government and its customer companies.

Samsung purchased 2.89 million square meters of land, or the size of around 400 soccer fields, in Pyeongtaek, about 70 km south of the capital Seoul, to construct the world's No.1 semiconductor complex, the company said in a statement.

The land almost equals to a combined size of Samsung's Giheung and Hwaseong chip complexes in South Korea, measuring 1.32 million square meters and 1.58 million square meters each.

Among the total, 790,000 square meters of land will be first used to build the world's largest chip production line by spending 15.6 trillion won (14.3 billion U.S. dollars) by 2017.

Some 10 trillion won will be spent on chip equipment investment, with the remaining 5.6 trillion won to be spent on factory building and infrastructure.

For four years through 2013, Samsung invested about 50 trillion won in semiconductor equipment.

Samsung, which entered into the chip business in 1974, has kept the No.1 position in terms of the global market share of memory chip for 22 years in a row.

According to a market researcher IHS, the global chip market would continue to grow to 390.5 billion dollars in 2018 from 350 billion dollars in 2014. Demand is forecast to expand for chips used in the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable devices.

The Samsung's largest-ever investment into a single chip production line is expected to create some 150,000 jobs and generate 41 trillion won in production, the company said.