"We have absolutely no plans to freeze or roll back investments in the country. On the contrary, we are going to step up our operations as there is a huge market for consumer electronics and home appliances," marketing and sales vice-president Rajiv Karwal said.

LG set up shop in the country in May last year, investing about $60 million, which is to be stepped up to $150 million by 2000, Karwal said.

He added that LG was not hit by sanctions as it had no plans at the moment to raise debt from overseas institutions. "Most of our debt is raised in India itself and we have tied up with domestic financial institutions like the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India (ICICI) for our needs," he said.

Karwal said that while some of the company's rival companies had put on hold some of their projects in India becauseof the uncertain atmosphere created by sanctions post nuclear tests, LG was going ahead with its scheduled plans.

"Since we believe in large volume sales for sustaining our operations, we do not anticipate any problems as far as business is concerned," he said, adding, however, that his company was among the first to raise prices after the budget levies.

Giving an indication of their product launches, Karwal said LG would have shortly as many as 18 models of colour television sets, 14 models of refrigerators, washing machines, air conditioners, microwave ovens, video disc players, computers and multimedia products.

Karwal said that LG intends to have a good market share in all the regions of the country, in contrast to other foreign companies operating here, which have strong presence in certain belts such as in the north or south or west.He indicated that some of their operations might be shifted from Thailand, which has been one of the worst hit in the SE Asian meltdown.

LG has a strong presence inthe United Kingdom and South Africa. Karwal said LG achieved a Rs 200-crore turnover in the first 11 months of its operations in the country, which was "quite high" compared to other foreign players.

"Between April and June this year, we have touched Rs 125 crore and between January to June it has been Rs 200 crore," he said, adding that their target for 1998 was about Rs 400 crore and might overhaul it. LG has CTV models ranging from 21inches to 43inch projection systems as also their niche products, Golden Eye TV monitor, which adjusts its colour and brightness according to prevailing lighting conditions.

Twinstar would be the only one of its kind in CTV in the country with an built-in VCD player, he said. LG has also a wide range of audio systems which will be launched in the country shortly, he said. LG is a $85-billion company and its flagship is its consumer electronics division.

With a 45 per cent market share on its home territory in South Korea, LG was the latest South Korean company to enterIndia after Samsung and Daewoo. LG plans to achieve a group turnover of $385 billion by 2005.