Brussels, 17/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission has given the go-ahead for the joint venture between Hitachi Ltd of Japan and LG Electronics of South Korea in the sector of optical data storage disk drives (CD and DVD drives). Hitachi and LGE have a range of activities, notably in consumer electronics, telecommunications equipment and electronic devices. Both parents will transfer their activities to the joint venture and will subsequently withdraw from the market in question. The joint venture will be globally active with facilities in Japan and South Korea but will mainly be active globally in R&D, design and marketing of the drives, but will not produce them. Production will either be outsourced to the parent companies or to independent providers of electronic manufacturing services. The Commission cleared the deal because of the limited market share of the parents and the fact the venture will face strong competition from Toshiba (Japan), Samsung (South Korea) and Lite-ON (Taiwan).