Chang In-hwa, chairman of POSCO Group, said on the 31st, "Now, through steel, energy materials, and the energy business, we will go beyond Korea's industrialization, fulfill our role as a key axis in the global supply chain, and achieve bigger dreams."
In a speech marking the 58th anniversary of the company's founding sent to employees that day, Chang said, "The noble pledge of 'Jaechulboguk (making steel to repay the nation)' was the driving force behind the company's remarkable success."
He said, "On this day 58 years ago, our founding generation took the first step in the history of POSCO Group on the barren plains of Yeongilman," adding, "In a wasteland with no capital, no technology, no experience, and no resources, we opened the curtain on industrialization with a desperate resolve to succeed in building a steel mill."
Chang went on to say, "The journey that began with steel out of a sense of mission to become the foundation of the national industry is now stretching powerfully toward the world, expanding its scope to energy materials, the energy business, and new businesses."
He said, "But the business conditions before us as we must take on the future are uncertain and rough," adding, "Protectionism, the weaponization of resources, and the conflicts and disputes continuing around the world are affecting every area of the group's business and heightening a sense of crisis."
He added, "We must take the DNA of responsibility for challenge and task completion and a belief in creativity, which we recall from our founding spirit, as the driving force toward success," and said, "On top of the proud POSCO spirit we have built and inherited, we must leap toward a better future."
Chang said, "Emulating the indomitable will of our seniors who made the impossible possible, we must, based on innovation that breaks through limits and dogged execution, unfailingly achieve the management goals planned for this year in all institutional sectors."
He continued, "While raising steel's fundamental competitiveness to the world's highest level, we must, through preemptive securing of quality resources, further fortify the energy materials business and cultivate core future businesses that can lead changes in future industries to build a foundation for sustainable growth."
He said, "Behind the company becoming stronger even as it faced countless ordeals lies a tradition of overcoming them through unity based on mutual trust among employees," adding, "Even when we run into unexpected obstacles, let labor and management join hands to overcome them and move toward the future."
Lastly, Chang said, "Let us create history by achieving a quantum jump in the group's value through successfully realizing our management goals, strengthening the foundation for sustainable growth, and labor-management harmony, while sublimating anew the great POSCO spirit—voluntarily forged by all employees since the founding generation—to match the calling demanded by the present era."