■ Won the $53 million contract for the turnkey underground extra-high-voltage cable project from the Ministry of Electricity and Water of Kuwait
■ First contract of Chinese subsidiary after shifting focus on overseas projects
■ Competitiveness in overseas infrastructure projects expected due to Chinese capital
 
LS Cable & announced on December 12 that its Chinese production subsidiary, LS HongQi Cable & System(LSHQ), entered into a contract with the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) of Kuwait for extra-high-voltage underground cables worth $53 million (about KRW58 billion).
 
This is the first contract for an extra-high-voltage cable project that LSHQ has won in the Middle East. LSHQ will supply complete 132kV cable systems on a turnkey basis across Kuwait from next year until 2019.
 
“LSHQ began to shift the focus of its business model from domestic consumption to overseas markets, such as the Middle East and Asia last year, and this is the result of such efforts,” said Roe-Hyun Myung, President and CEO of LS C&S. “This contract will help LSHQ increase its overseas contracts in earnest.”
 
LS Cable & System secured competitiveness through cross-selling with LSHQ. Sophisticated products were manufactured in Korea while other products were manufactured in China so that they could secure both quality and price competitiveness. And critically, the head office capitalized on its existing customer networking to support marketing.
 
Underground cables with up to 500kV capacity are available in the market, and as the voltage goes up, the need for product development and construction technology also increases. As local companies in various countries and Chinese companies can easily make cables with up to 132kV capacity, Korean companies are concentrating on winning contracts for 220kV or higher cables, connectors and turnkey construction projects.
 
LS Cable & System believes that it can take advantage of LSHQ to find itself in a more favorable position when bidding on power infrastructure projects, particularly those across Asia, Africa and South America in which Chinese capital will be invested. In such projects, only those companies having production plants in China will get an opportunity to bid.