Taihan Cable begins construction of optical cable plant in Kuwait

Taihan Cable & Solution Co. said on Monday that it held a groundbreaking ceremony for its optical cable production unit Taihan Kuwait in the Middle Eastern country on the previous day.

Taihan Kuwait is the first fiber optic cable manufacturing company in Kuwait, which was invested jointly by Taihan and Rank General Trading & Contracting, a local construction and trading company.

The ceremony was attended by Kim Seon-gyu, chairman of the Hoban Group, Na Hyeong-gyun, president of Taihan Cable & Solution, and Kim Min-seong, executive director of Hoban Group. In addition, government officials from both countries, including Korean Ambassador to Kuwait Jeong Byeong-ha, were in attendance at the ceremony.

Taihan's Kuwaiti plant will be built on a 5,000-square-meter site in the Mina Abdullah industrial zone in the southeast of Kuwait City, the capital of Kuwait. It is expected that the plant will be completed in the second half of this year and will be able to make sales before the year's end.

Taihan established the Taihan Kuwait corporation in 2021, based on expectations that information and communications demand would rise rapidly in the Middle East.

In the case of Kuwait alone, demand for IT gear, due to factors such as the building of the 5G mobile communications infrastructure, is expanding at a fast pace as the "New Kuwait 2035" project, a mid- to long-term national development plan, is underway.

The South Korean company plans to preempt the Kuwaiti optical cable market and actively respond to the increase in demand from neighboring countries.

"We will secure price competitiveness and as many orders as possible by localizing production, and we will expand our market dominance by undertaking active sales promotion based on this strength," said Taihan Cable & Solution CEO Na.

Write to Sungsu Bae at baebae@hankyung.com