Changwon Special City, "Bringing Great Hope to Citizens... Changwon Runs Again"

Good News on Production and Orders Continue for Changwon's Leading Companies

Mayor Hong Nampyo: "Companies Show Results in Market Development"

On the 22nd, Changwon Special City in Gyeongnam announced that the city’s representative companies have brought great hope to citizens through the resumption of halted production lines and large-scale order wins.

In particular, the restart of production in the nuclear power and completed vehicle sectors is expected to have a significant impact on the overall recovery of the local economy, as the related industrial ecosystem had been struggling.

◆ Signal of Recovery for the K-Nuclear Power Ecosystem

On the 15th, a groundbreaking ceremony for the main equipment production supplied to Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 nuclear power plants was held at the Doosan Enerbility (hereafter DoosanE) factory. This came just two months after DoosanE signed a main equipment supply contract worth approximately 2.9 trillion KRW with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power in March. Notably, this main equipment production is the first in six years since the previous government halted the project.

The commencement ceremony for the manufacturing of the main equipment supplied to Shin Hanul Units 3 and 4 nuclear power plants was held on the 15th at the Doosan Enerbility (hereafter Doosan E) factory.

The groundbreaking ceremony, held amid high interest from local nuclear power companies, served as a signal to the nuclear industry that work interrupted by the nuclear phase-out policy is resuming. It is known that 460 domestic partner companies are participating in this project.

Starting with this groundbreaking ceremony, Changwon City expects that if next-generation nuclear technologies such as Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and nuclear power exports are fully launched, the workload in related fields within the region will recover to pre-nuclear phase-out levels.

The city is promoting various support projects aiming to establish itself as the world’s strongest global foundry (contract manufacturer) for the nuclear industry, and plans to do its best to maintain a super-gap with other regions centered on Changwon National Industrial Complex 2.0, which was selected as a candidate site for a new national industrial complex.

▲ Active Orders and Production in the Mobility Sector

Recently, Hyundai Rotem secured a new high-speed train project for the Suseo High-Speed Railway (SRT) worth about 1 trillion KRW. Hyundai Rotem had previously won a 710 billion KRW high-speed train order from Korail in March, securing a total order volume of 1.796 trillion KRW in just one month.

Hong Nampyo, Mayor of Changwon Special City, Gyeongnam, attended the GTX delivery ceremony held at Hyundai Rotem on December 19, 2022. [Image provided by Changwon Special City]

Changwon is the largest railway industry cluster in Korea, home to over 120 related companies including Hyundai Rotem, the country’s leading railway manufacturer. It is also the core city of the domestic railway industry, accounting for 42% of the workforce and over 95% of exports in the related sector.

This large-scale order by Hyundai Rotem is expected not only to strengthen the status of Changwon’s railway industry but also to generate employment effects for about 2,500 people.

Additionally, the recently launched new car, Chevrolet Trax, by Korea GM, the region’s only completed vehicle manufacturer, is making waves in the small sport utility vehicle (SUV) market.

Korea GM’s Changwon plant has been a global mecca for compact car production, serving as the global compact car development headquarters for the world’s largest automobile group, GM. However, following the discontinuation of commercial vehicles that served as the public’s transportation, the compact car Spark was also discontinued at the end of last year.

At the end of 2018, GM headquarters in the U.S. finalized an investment plan to assign a global new car to the Changwon plant, investing about 900 billion KRW in production facilities to transform it into a crossover utility vehicle (CUV) production plant by 2021. As a result, the plant newly secured the capacity to produce 60 vehicles per hour and 280,000 vehicles annually.

The new car showed signs of a sales boom from pre-orders. Since each vehicle contains tens of thousands of parts, a significant ripple effect from increased production is expected, raising the local mood. Notably, since the first shipment at Gapo New Port at the end of February, cumulative exports reached 34,114 units in just three days.

◆ Continued K-Defense Industry Momentum and Full Operation of Seasonal Product Production Lines

Defense company SNT Dynamics (formerly SNT Heavy Industries), which changed its name in February this year, signed large-scale defense product supply contracts with domestic companies last year and succeeded in exporting a 1,500-horsepower automatic transmission for BMC’s main battle tank to Turkish defense company BMC in January this year. The contract amount reached 92.2 billion KRW, marking the first defense export contract of the year and the first export case of independently developed core technology parts.

Also, LG Electronics, a representative home appliance company in Changwon, has started full operation of its air conditioner production line ahead of the upcoming heat wave. Recently, the Korea Meteorological Administration forecasted that temperatures in May will be higher than average, and temperatures in June and July will be higher or similar to average. Especially, this summer is expected to see intense monsoon and heat waves, so LG Electronics’ air conditioner production line momentum is expected to continue for the time being.

Changwon Special City, in its 8th elected term, has launched a grand plan for the next 50 years of the Changwon National Industrial Complex, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary next year. Through this, it plans to prepare sustainable growth measures for Changwon companies, including digital transformation across manufacturing processes.

Hong Nam-pyo, Mayor of Changwon Special City, said, “Changwon is characterized by a few large companies and many partner companies, so the production and order performance of representative companies directly benefits partner companies. We thank the companies that continuously bring hope to our citizens through relentless market development and research and development. We will do our best to promote and support production activities.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.