President Lee Jae-myung held a private dinner meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won at an undisclosed location in Seoul on the 20th. The two reportedly discussed a broad range of domestic and international semiconductor investment issues as well as labor-management matters, against the backdrop of mounting pressure from the Trump administration for onshore semiconductor investment in the United States.<\/p>\n
According to the presidential office and industry sources, the meeting took place roughly two months after the two last met ahead of the June announcement of the “Three Mega Projects,” which include the Honam Semiconductor Cluster. The two also attended an artificial intelligence (AI) summit together in San Francisco late last month, making this effectively a reunion after about three weeks.<\/p>\n
Key agenda items at the meeting reportedly included the progress of semiconductor fab construction in Yongin, South Jeolla Province, and Gwangju; the strategic value of semiconductors in the AI era; and investment pressure from the United States. The two are also understood to have exchanged views on shareholder return policies and performance-based bonus distribution tied to a percentage of operating profit\u2014labor-management issues currently facing SK Group.<\/p>\n
Specific details of the conversation were not disclosed. The presidential office stated that it “cannot confirm details of private schedules,” and SK Group took the same position.<\/p>\n
Successive Meetings with Business Leaders on the Horizon<\/p>\n
President Lee is reportedly planning to continue holding private meetings with major conglomerate leaders, starting with his meeting with Chairman Chey and extending to Samsung Electronics (005930) Chairman Lee Jae-yong and LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo. The move is interpreted as an effort to hear candid views from the business community in informal settings rather than official forums, and to incorporate those perspectives into state affairs.<\/p>\n
In July of last year, about a month after taking office, President Lee held separate dinners with Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong, Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun, and LG Group Chairman Koo Kwang-mo at his official residence in Hannam-dong, Seoul. The prevailing analysis is that the meeting with Chairman Chey was arranged in the same vein.<\/p>\n
U.S. Investment Pressure and Domestic Labor Tensions<\/p>\n
The backdrop to this meeting is the United States’ demand for onshore semiconductor investment. U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said publicly last month that he “wants to bring Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix (000660) to the United States and have them build factories.” While the presidential office denied the reports, there have been media accounts that the U.S. government requested semiconductors as its “No. 1 investment project from South Korea.”<\/p>\n
Chairman Chey indirectly expressed concerns about this in a recent CNBC interview. He noted that “every country wants semiconductor factories built on its own soil,” but emphasized that “a semiconductor fab is a facility supported by 600 to 700 materials and components suppliers,” adding that “the key question is whether that ecosystem can be realized.” The remarks pointed to the practical difficulties of local production in the United States.<\/p>\n
Domestically, labor-management conflict has also emerged as a pressing issue surrounding Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix’s 800 trillion won (approximately $573.7 billion) investment in new fabs in South Jeolla Province and Gwangju. The Samsung Electronics labor union is arguing that the decision to invest in the Honam Semiconductor Cluster itself is subject to collective bargaining, and demands for semiconductor profit-sharing are emerging across the labor sector.<\/p>\n
A business community source said, “The United States, having watched Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix announce astronomical domestic investments, now demanding investment in its own country is the worst-case scenario for us.”<\/p>\n
The dinner, coming at a time when U.S. investment pressure and domestic labor-management issues are simultaneously intensifying, is being interpreted as a signal of coordination between the government and the business community. Semiconductor investment strategy and labor-management issues are highly likely to remain core agenda items in President Lee’s upcoming meetings with other business leaders.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Lee Jae-myung held a private dinner meeting with SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won at an undisclosed location…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":126973,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2589,74,36820,2213,31,146,314,276,240,275,33,37007],"class_list":["post-126972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-south-korea","tag-chey-tae-won","tag-donald-trump","tag-honam-semiconductor-cluster","tag-howard-lutnick","tag-korea","tag-lee-jae-myung","tag-lg-group","tag-samsung-electronics","tag-sk-group","tag-sk-hynix","tag-south-korea","tag-three-mega-projects"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126972\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}