Up to 200 billion won to be invested in new materials sector over next 5 years By making substantial investments in the field of IT and optical materials business, Hanwha L&C plans to focus on the new materials sector as its core business . along with today's mainstay business that centers around floorings, household fittings and automobile parts. To achieve this goal, Hanwha L&C set up a special task force in 2000 and has stepped up efforts to develop its own IT products. Investment of 200 billion won by 2010 By investing a total of 200 billion won in the IT and optical materials business until 2010, Hanwha believes that it can raise its revenue to 30 percent of the company's total sales and consolidate its status as an IT materials supplier leading the local market. Making a business turnaround starting with FCCLs By devoting efforts to develop IT materials such as FCCLs (flexible copper clad laminates), the product that stands out as the most exemplary case in making a business turnaround, Hanwha L&C was able to begin producing pilot products since July 2002 at the manufacturing lines of the company's research center in Daeduk Valley. Furthermore, the company has set up a plant capable of producing 200,000 square meters of FCCLs per month in 2003 by investing over 10 billion won for the manufacturing facilities in Bugang in North Chungchung Province. Moreover, the company has decided to not only increase production capacity to 600,000 square meters by 2006 but also make investments for the production of highly flexible, twolayer non-adhesive type FCCLs that can accommodate minute circuit designs in addition to the three-layer adhesive types that are already under production. Leading the way with homeproduced IT materials Starting with the successful development in 2003 of home-produced FCCLs, the product that the market had previously been relying on imports, Hanwha L&C, armed with self-developed technologies, was able to compete with imported products. In the process, the company says, it had been quite a difficult task to gain the recognition of end-users as foreign brands from Arisawa, Nikkan, and Toray dominated the domestic market. Along with the consumers perception that Hanwha is a construction materials producer without any business links to FPCB (flexible print circuit board) makers and without up and downstream fields of business in the production of FCCLs, the company said that making inroads into the existing market had been a major stumbling block. Despite this handicap, however, the company said that its products today are appraised to be of higher quality than other brands thanks to quality improvements made through benchmarking and fostering of highly skilled human resource. In addition to this, the company said that it plans to strengthen its position as a leading print circuit board maker producing a wide range of related products including not only adhesive types but also non-adhesive products as well as bonding sheets and stiffners. The company said that as it plans to invest a total of 40 billion won for its FCCL business by 2007 it will be equipped with production facilities capable of supplying 60,000 square meters of two-layer FCCLs and 600,000 square meters of three-layer FCCLs by the end of 2006. When the third phase of facility enlargement is completed by late 2007, the company said that production capacities will be raised to 120,000 square meters of two-layer FCCLs and 800,000 square meters of three-layer FCCLs, thus replacing about 200 billion won of imports made from Japan annually.