LG to invest 120bn won in environmental safety

LG Electronics Inc., the world's third-largest smartphone maker, said Monday that it plans to spend 120 billion won (US$107.8 million) to beef up its environmental safety program, including chemical spill prevention, by 2015. LG also said it will expand the number of chemical experts and improve its fire protection system as part of the plans. The investment plan came after a highly poisonous hydrofluoric acid leak at Samsung Electronics Corporation's main chip plant took place on Thursday in the South Korean city of Hwaseong. For the second time in just three months, a small amount of diluted hydrofluoric acid, a colorless acute poison that can damage the lungs and bones and even affect the nervous system, leaked at Samsung's semiconductor plant in Hwaseong, 60 kilometers south of Seoul, injuring three subcontract workers.