POSCO donated 400 million won (Australian $500,000) to the Red Cross of Australia through its Australian corporation POSCO Australia on Jan. 7. The relief money will be used for Australian forest fire relief.
"We want to help Australian people restore the disaster and share the pain with them," POSCO Chairman Choi Jung-woo said. "We hope that wildfires in Australia, a major source of raw materials and investment with POSCO, will be extinguished as soon as possible."
POSCO, the chairman of the Korean side of the Korea-Australia Economic Cooperation Committee, has played a pivotal role in private exchanges between the two countries since 2002.
It is also the largest buyer of raw materials worth 5 trillion won a year from Australia and a direct investor in raw materials such as iron ore, coal and lithium. Since taking office in 2018, Choi has served as chairman of the Korea-Australia Economic Cooperation Committee.
The massive forest fire, which began in October last year in New South Wales, Australia, is spreading throughout the state due to unusually high temperatures and strong winds during the summer, adding to the damage, with the worst-hit New South Wales and Victoria being declared as the "states of emergency" on Jan. 3
So far, at least 24 people have been killed in the wildfire, and the extent of the damage is getting worse, with the affected area exceeding 6 million hectares, about 100 times the area of Seoul, and 2,000 houses being destroyed in the fire.
