The East Asia Pacific CEO of Air Liquide is confident South Korea will become the second biggest industrial gases market after China by 2035.
In an interview with The Korea Economic Daily, Park Il-Yong said that a key reason behind its recent $3.3bn acquisition of DIG Airgas was to capitalise not just on South Korea’s existing potential but “preparing for the next 10 years”.
South Korea is currently in third place in Asian gas markets, behind Japan and China.
Already home to the world’s top two memory chipmakers, the boom in AI and new technologies provides firm foundations for South Korea’s future growth.
In July, Air Liquide started up a molybdenum manufacturing plant in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province in South Korea to support semiconductor manufacturers.
The plant is supplying customers with Air Liquide’s advanced materials offering, Subleem, which makes it easier to use solid precursors like molybdenum chlorides in advanced 3D-NAND memory, and helps improve read and write speeds.
A month earlier, it announced plans to build an ultra-high-purity air gases plant in Singapore.
Air Liquide previously said the continued growth of electronics production in Asia is boosting its projects pipeline for the high-purity carrier gases that serve this market.