People Power Party Mulls Parliamentary Probe into Honam Semiconductor Investment

The People Power Party (PPP) has indicated it may consider a parliamentary investigation, criticizing the government and large corporations' recent announcement of semiconductor factory investments in the Honam region as rushed.

The PPP took issue with the government spearheading major semiconductor investments, which are typically corporate decisions, and announcing them just before the Democratic Party's national convention. Floor Leader Jeong Jin-seok criticized the scene, where the president was flanked by corporate chairmen, as a symbol of state-controlled economy. Jeong stated that he is not opposed to investment in Honam but demands the upholding of procedural fairness and transparency, arguing that unprepared, rushed initiatives will not benefit Honam or South Korea as a whole. He added that if a parliamentary investigation was conducted for 'salmon donburi costing 10,000 won,' there was no reason not to do so for semiconductor investments worth 800 trillion won.

Twenty-five PPP lawmakers from Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongnam regions released a statement asserting, 'Semiconductors are not factories built by votes.' They characterized the approach of fabricating justifications after an announcement as 'vote-pandering' rather than industrial policy and demanded that the reasons for choosing Honam and comparative analyses with other regions be disclosed to the public.