Samsung on September 29 announced it will set aside US$33 billion in the coming seven years to build eight new chip production lines and an R&D center in the Hwaseong area in Korea. When all nine facilities will be ready in 2012, Samsung will have created 14,000 new jobs, and it expects annual semiconductor sales to grow to US$61 billion, a considerable increase from US$16.3 billion in 2004. The company said four of the eight production lines will be allocated to the manufacturing of 300mm and larger wafer units. As Samsung is already quite dominant in memory chips, it is expected that with the new investment the company will focus more on non-memory chips.