LG Display Co, the world's second-largest LCD panel maker, said yesterday it plans to invest 1.1 trillion won (US$934 million) in a joint venture to build a US$4 billion liquid crystal display plant in southern China's city of Guangzhou.

LG Display said it would own a 70 percent stake in the JV and Guangzhou's government would be one of the investment partners in the plant, which will produce 8th-generation LCD panels.

The plant, which is to be named LG Display China, will start mass production of LCD panels bigger than 40 inches in the first half of 2012, LG Display said.

The project is still waiting for the approval from the South Korean government.

The more advanced LCD panel plants can make larger-sized LCD panels for TVs, which gives firms greater economic efficiency.

The most advanced LCD panel plants in the Chinese mainland are 5th-generation plants, which can only make panels for LCD monitors. China's BOE Co Ltd is building a 6th-generation plant in central China's Anhui Province and an 8th-generation plant in Beijing.

In the second quarter, the global LCD TV sales jumped 27 percent on year to hit 30 million units, compared with a decline of 8 percent of the total TV market, according to DisplaySearch, a US-based research firm.

LG Display had 13.7 percent of the global LCD TV market by revenue at the end of June.