South Korean President Moon Jae-in will attend a ceremony to mark the completion of Samsung Electronics’ new smartphone plant in India next week, according to Cheong Wa Dae.
The president, who is to pay a state visit to the country from July 8 to 11, will be joining the tech titan‘s celebration on Monday, an event to take place at its new smartphone production facility in Noida, a planned city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, a Blue House official confirmed Thursday.
The official added Samsung Group’s heir apparent Lee Jae-yong might also take part in the ceremony, a scenario which is yet to be confirmed by Samsung. The company has only confirmed so far that Vice Chairman Yoon Boo-keun will accompany the president as a member of the president’s business corp.
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Samsung Electronics heir and Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong introduces the company‘s business operations in India in a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during this visit to New Delhi in September 2016. (Samsung Electronics) |
Samsung has invested $650 million into the new Indian factory as part of its efforts to expand into the second-biggest market after China by populations amid a fierce competition with Chinese rivals.
If Lee does attend the event as largely speculated, the meeting will mark the first between Moon and Lee since the Samsung scion was freed in February after serving a jail term for his role in the corruption scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye. The overseas event will also mark Lee‘s first official appearance in public since his release.
Considering that the new India plant is built for smartphones, Samsung’s mobile device chief Koh Dong-jin is highly likely to attend.
By Song Su-hyun (
song@heraldcorp.com)