Cho Joo-wan, LG Electronics chief executive officer, speaks during a general shareholders meeting in Seoul, in this photo provided by LG Electronics, March 25. Yonhap
LG Electronics Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Cho Joo-wan said Tuesday his company is fully ready to expand production facilities in the United States as a way to deal with Washington's tariff policies.
"We have secured building sites for refrigerator and oven production at our Tennessee plant as a last option when the U.S. tariff on Mexican goods takes effect," Cho told reporters after a general shareholders meeting in Seoul.
"We are currently maintaining the site and constructing some temporary buildings. If such policies come into effect, we will be able to move forward without delay."
LG Electronics, which produces washers and dryers at its Tennessee plant, has been considering relocating part of its home appliance manufacturing from Mexico to the U.S. to avoid potential tariffs.
Regarding the possible resumption of operations at LG Electronics' production plant in Moscow, Russia, Cho remained cautious, citing the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war.
"We are closely watching the situation as the war is not over yet," he said. "We are not taking any aggressive actions. We can start operations when sanctions are lifted."
He also unveiled plans to meet with Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, in Seoul later this week to discuss details of the companies' partnership announced in January. Nadella is expected to visit Korea on Wednesday to attend an artificial intelligent (AI) event.
"I am confident that we will collaborate on developing an AI agent, and LG Electronics' Chiller technology will be installed in Microsoft's data centers," he said. "But we still need to determine the exact scale of our contribution."
Chiller is LG Electronics' large-scale cooling technology designed for massive buildings and high power-consuming facilities, including AI data centers. (Yonhap)
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