2020 New Year's Message from Chairman Kim

Dear Hanwha Family,

I wish you and your families a New Year full of happiness and good health. You have my deepest gratitude for devoting yourselves to Hanwha’s future, especially in light of the internal and external challenges our businesses have had to overcome.

It’s been ten years since we announced our Quality Growth 2020 vision. Looking back, our accomplishments have been significant. We’ve explored and identified new business opportunities amidst heightened trade conflicts and great uncertainty in the global economy. We overhauled our corporate structure to become more specialized so we could dominate in each of the industries we operate. All of you have been our foundation for change—the reason we have been able to reach this level of success and make great leaps and bounds over the past decade. From your accomplishments, we can all draw inspiration and encouragement to continue our efforts.

And, continue we must! For the next ten years, let us continue our qualitative growth. To this end, we need to accelerate how Hanwha qualitatively differentiates ourselves from the competition and how we can elevate our businesses to lead globally. In the next ten years, we need to achieve this goal through a disciplined execution of our strategy to make Hanwha the undisputed global leader in each of our core business areas. And so, our next great leap in the decade to come will depend on how we establish first-in-class business positions and secure our sustainable value for the future.

First, we must accelerate our digital transformation to achieve competitiveness in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Digital technology is already changing everything about the way we operate. We must, therefore, embrace the technological revolution this year, driving every one of our companies to digitize and bring about real change to capture growth opportunities. The adoption and application of technologies must focus on Hanwha’s current and future strengths. From there, we must implement digital transformations across the board.

Next, each business needs to secure market leadership by executing a set of strategic management activities.

Our mid-to-long-term goal for each Hanwha company requires us to be forward-thinking and look externally to identify and invest in new business models, as well as internally to develop a scalable corporate culture that is sustainable and innovative. We must be both focused and methodical in our approach to improve our core businesses and, in the coming years, generate higher business values and increase our growth potential. And we must do this even as the business landscape remains uncertain. We must secure vital business capabilities and resources for the future. We must do this while strengthening our competitiveness. And instead of imitating and following others, I urge you all to innovate and create value⁠—the likes of which the world has never seen before.

We must evolve as a sustainable company whose growth is rooted in the deep trust shared between ourselves and our various stakeholders.

A company's pride is not simply in numbers like those from sales and profits. It's also about gaining the trust of a community that includes shareholders, customers, and employees. We must recognize that saving the environment, giving back to society, and running a company fairly and transparently are how Hanwha builds its long-term growth engines.

In particular, I have emphasized the company-wide practice of ethical management over the years. Now, this should move beyond my personal beliefs and become deeply rooted in all of us at Hanwha. Safety and compliance are among the various components of ethical management, and are the two solid wheels that will move Hanwha to a lasting future. All work done in Hanwha's name should always begin with the perfect practice of safety and compliance management.

Dear Hanwha Family!

As the saying goes, “Every cloud has a silver lining.”
So, let us go further together this year, toward a hope-filled tomorrow.

Thank you.

January 2, 2020

Seung Youn Kim
Chairman
Hanwha Group