Hyundai Motor Group, the world's fifth-largest automaker, said Tuesday it will invest about 81 trillion won (US$73 billion) over the next four years as it seeks to become a global leader by improving facilities and securing core technologies.

Hyundai Motor Group said it will spend 49.1 trillion won in building new plants and expanding facilities by 2018, and invest 31.6 trillion won on research and development.

The large-scale investment is aimed at obtaining key technologies needed to produce eco-friendly and smart vehicles whose market is expected to see intensified competition, the group said.

"We will make an unprecedented amount of investment by 2018 to lay the groundwork for us to become a global leader in all aspects, including production capacity, quality competitiveness, technology power in core fields and brand value," it said.

"In particular, we will focus our investment here in Korea in a bid to help bring about (local) economic effect, create jobs and contribute to stimulating the national economy," it added. Some 76 percent of the investment was allocated for home.

Hyundai Motor Group is expected to spend an annual average of 20.2 trillion won through 2018, which would be larger than the previous all-time high of 14.9 trillion won in 2014.

The parent group of Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Motors Corp. plans to inject 68.9 trillion won into the auto-making sector, accounting for over 85 percent of the total, as the two affiliates expand their production capacity and accelerate the R&D drive.

In particular, it will expand investment in developing future-oriented technologies, including new materials, and invest 11.3 trillion won by 2018 to develop eco-friendly vehicles such as hybrid electric cars and fuel cell vehicles.

The group will hire 7,345 R&D specialists over the next four years.

To enhance its brand value, the group said that it will expedite building the Global Business Center (GBC) on a 10.55 trillion won plot of land in southern Seoul. Last week, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Mong-koo said that it will construct a 105-story building there.

In September, Hyundai Motor purchased the 79,345-square-meter piece of real estate that used to house the main headquarters of state-run Korea Electric Power Corp. in Gangnam, the wealthy southern part of Seoul. The purchasing price for the land was close to triple its appraised value.

Shares of Hyundai Motor closed down 2.08 percent at 164,500 won on the main bourse, underperforming the benchmark KOSPI which dropped 1.74 percent. Shares of Kia Motors also ended down 1.54 percent at 51,200 won. (Yonhap)