Despite global economic woes last year, LG Chem saw its operating profit increase by 39.1 percent to 1.82 trillion won, compared to the preceding year, according to the firm’s annual earnings report released Tuesday.

The company’s annual revenue, however, decreased to 20.21 trillion won, down 10.5 percent from the year before.

The chemical and battery business affiliate of LG Group said in the earnings report that “Overall sales have decreased due to slow recovery of the global economy and oil price plunge.”

The firm attributed the increase in operating profit to the “the strong spread of basic chemical materials and the differentiated product portfolios of each business company.”

In the fourth quarter of 2015, the firm earned 5.04 trillion won in sales, down 6.2 percent compared to the previous year, and 352 billion won in operating profit, up 52 percent on-year.

In the year 2015, the basic materials and chemicals business pulled in 14.63 trillion won in sales, down 15.2 percent on-year, and 1.68 trillion won in operating profit, up 50.1 percent compared to 2014.

The electronic IT and materials business earned 2.76 trillion won, down 1.7 percent on-year, with its operating profit sitting at 146 billion won, up 8.9 percent from a year earlier.

The battery business of the firm saw its operating profit plunged 99.2 percent year on year to 500 million won while its sales saw a 10.4 percent increase at 150.3 billion won compared with the year before.

The LG Group affiliate has set the sales target of the next year at 21.7 trillion won, up 7.3 percent from this year and plans to increase its capital expenditure by 3.3 percent on-year to 1.78 trillion won.

By Kim Young-won (wone0102@heraldcorp.com)