LG Display said it would invest 833 billion won ($785 million) in small and mid-sized liquid crystal display panels from the third quarter of this year.

The new investment, with the goal of mass producing the panels by 2015, is largely due to the surge in demand for smart devices like smartphones and tablet PCs, the company said. The amount is an increase of 20 percent from the 4 trillion won investment plan already set early this year.

LG Display signed a deal with Gumi city in North Gyeongsang Province on Sept. 13, in a bid to produce 20,000 LCD panels each month.

Of the investment, some 80 percent will be focused on high-added-value products like organic light-emitting diodes and low-temperature polycrystaline silicon.

Forty-seven percent of the investment, or 1.9 trillion won, was already executed in the first half of this year. With the demand for smart devices rising, however, the company said it expanded the size of the investment.

LG Display has so far invested some 14 trillion won since 1995 in Gumi where around 16,000 employees work for the company.

(shinjh@heraldcorp.com)