Hyundai chief forms committee to donate money to charity

SEOUL: The head of South Korea's top automaker Hyundai Motor has set up a committee to honour his pledge to donate about one billion dollars to charity, Hyundai officials said on Monday.

They said the committee, consisted of seven prominent figures in business, academia and law, would start work on October 22.   

Hyundai Automotive Group chairman Chung Mong-Koo was sentenced to jail in February for breach of trust and embezzling 90 billion won (97 million dollars) in company funds through fraudulent accounting.   

But an appeal court quashed the prison sentence on September 6 and replaced it with a suspended sentence.   

Chung was ordered to undertake community service -- including delivering speeches and writing articles on the need for ethics in business -- and to make good on his pledge to donate money to charity.   

Chung, 69, wanted the money used for the protection of the environment and to build art and cultural facilities.   

The Hyundai group, which includes affiliate Kia Motors, controls 70 percent of the country's auto market and accounts for 5.4 percent of gross domestic product. Chung aims to make it the world's number five carmaker.