As the chaos in government affairs continued due to the impeachment situation, passage of major economic bills, including the ‘Semiconductor Special Act’, which was a long-awaited bill for the industry, was canceled by the National Assembly within the year. The business community is demanding that these bills be given priority in the extraordinary session of the National Assembly in January, as many of these bills are so-called ‘non-contentious bills’ proposed by both the ruling and opposition parties.
According to the business community on the 30th, it was found that the so-called review related to the Semiconductor Special Act has not been completed and it has become impossible to process it within the year. The National Assembly’s Trade, Industry, Energy, Small and Medium Venture Business Committee held the Trade, Industry and Energy Patent Subcommittee on the 26th, but before even starting the review of the Semiconductor Special Act, it was postponed due to schedules of the People Power Party’s general meeting and plenary session. It was decided to discuss the ’52-hour week exception rule’, which is a point of contention between the ruling and opposition parties, at the next subcommittee meeting, but even the schedule for the subcommittee is currently unclear.
The main focus of the semiconductor special law is direct subsidies to semiconductor companies and exceptions to the 52-hour workweek regulation. Unlike major countries such as the United States, Taiwan, and Japan, where the government provides trillion-dollar subsidies for investment in semiconductor facilities, Korea provides only tax credits without direct subsidies. Currently, domestic semiconductor-related incentives are around 1.2 trillion won, including all tax credits, which is one-tenth of Japan and one-fifth of the United States. The People Power Party designated it as a party line, and both the ruling and opposition parties reached some consensus on the need to process a special law, but the ruling and opposition parties continued to differ in their views on the exception to the 52-hour workweek rule, and its passage was ultimately postponed.
The business community proposed the passage of 23 legislative tasks in the economic field ahead of the full-scale review of bills at the first regular session of the 22nd National Assembly in October this year. Of these, 12 were non-controversial bills proposed by both the ruling and opposition parties, but most of them failed to pass the National Assembly within the year. The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry said, “Among the relevant bills, except for the Special Act on Artificial Intelligence, all are expected to pass this year without passing the related so-called threshold.”
The major non-contentious bills are △Semiconductor Special Act △High-tech Strategic Industry Fund Act △Amendment to the Criminal Act (strengthening punishment for illegal leaks of national core technologies) △Special Act on Power Grid Expansion △Amendment to the Foreign Worker Employment Act. Previously, at an emergency economic-related ministerial meeting on the 15th of this month, Choi Sang-mok, Acting President, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Strategy and Finance also said, “We will carefully explain the voices of the industry to the National Assembly so that bills that will determine the future fate of our industry, such as the Semiconductor Special Act, can be passed as much as possible within the year.” I said, “I will do it,” but in the end, it took more than a year.
The business community is looking forward to the possibility of an extraordinary session of the National Assembly in January next year. Kim Moon-tae, head of the industrial policy team of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said, “According to the National Assembly Act, January is a time when the extraordinary session of the National Assembly is not held, but as there are many bills on people’s livelihood that have been postponed due to political instability, an extraordinary session of the National Assembly must be held early in the year to ensure that only bills on which there is no disagreement that are proposed by the ruling and opposition parties must be reviewed first. “We do it,” he emphasized.
Reporter Kwak Do-young [email protected]
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