Rival parties compete for visibility over Honam semiconductor cluster

The Democratic Party of Korea has formally launched a special committee to support what it calls the "three mega projects" — semiconductors, data centers and physical AI — including the Honam semiconductor cluster, effectively placing itself on a full-support footing. The party plans to complete all related legislation by no later than February next year, in line with President Lee Jae-myung's emphasis on speed as the key to the projects' success.

The People Power Party, meanwhile, is pushing back, demanding thorough scrutiny into whether political considerations rather than industrial logic drove the decision, and calling for close examination of power and water infrastructure plans. Analysts say the two parties have now entered a full-blown competition for visibility around the semiconductor cluster, which has captured nationwide attention.

According to political circles, the Democratic Party held the launch ceremony for its special committee for the three mega projects on Thursday. The committee was elevated from an internal task force set up alongside the government's announcement of the three mega projects, and now operates directly under the party leader.

Han Byung-do, the party's acting leader and floor leader, took the helm of the committee as its chair, with policy committee chair Han Jeong-ae and former presidential Commission on Local Era chair Kim Gyeong-su named as vice chairs.

Rep. Jang Cheol-min, the committee's secretary-general, said at the launch ceremony that given the scale of the mega projects, bold incentives and sweeping regulatory exemptions — including a "white-collar exemption" from the 52-hour workweek cap for high-income research workers — would be put up for public debate going forward.

Han also met Prime Minister Han Seong-suk that day, saying the three mega projects, which he described as a historic turning point for South Korea, must be driven forward with the government, the private sector and the National Assembly acting as one. He said the party's special committee would "push through follow-up legislation, including the mega special zone bill, in a flash."

Prime Minister Han responded by saying the government would match the pace set by the party, adding that it needed to move quickly in step with the Assembly's swift launch of the special committee.

The People Power Party, for its part, has kept up a daily offensive, calling the selection of a southwestern site without a feasibility study "a politically motivated decision made for partisan gain."

On Thursday, the PPP's special committee on semiconductors and AI advanced industries co-hosted a forum series on the future and survival of the semiconductor industry at the National Assembly members' office building, together with Rep. Joo Ho-young.

In his opening remarks, Joo said that just two months ago, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won had come to the National Assembly and spoken negatively about the Honam semiconductor project, yet without any notable change in circumstances since then, President Lee had bowed at a 90-degree angle and secured 800 trillion won ($532 billion) in investment commitments. He said the forum was convened out of concern that rushing the project could cause a major undertaking to fail.

Kim Gyeong-gi, senior vice president of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' semiconductor division, delivered the keynote address, saying the government had announced a site first and was now working backward to figure out how to supply power and water. He said announcing a location without quantitative, factor-by-factor comparison and verification repeated the power supply problems that had surfaced at the Yongin national industrial complex.

Questions were also raised about the plan to rely primarily on renewable energy for power supply. Kim said that while the Honam region has abundant renewable energy potential, it is not sufficient to meet the round-the-clock power demands of semiconductor factories, and that the government itself had acknowledged renewables alone would not be enough and had officially announced it would supplement them with nuclear power.

Ko Dong-jin, a PPP lawmaker and former Samsung Electronics president, is set to hold a policy forum at the National Assembly on Thursday under the title "The Fiction and Reality of the Lee Jae-myung Government's Honam Semiconductor Plan," taking aim at what he called the need for sharp scrutiny.

Ko will chair the forum himself, with Jeong Yong-hun, a KAIST professor in the department of nuclear and quantum engineering, presenting on the limitations of renewable energy and RE100 for the Honam semiconductor project.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, one of the key ministries involved in developing the Honam semiconductor cluster, has indicated it will attend the forum, but the Ministry of Climate and Energy, which oversees energy policy including the central issue of power supply, and other related ministries are understood to have declined to participate.

Ko said the government's Honam semiconductor cluster plan needed close scrutiny to determine whether it was driven by political considerations rather than industrial logic, and called on the Ministry of Climate and Energy and the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to attend the forum and give the public a full explanation.