President Lee Jae Myung and presidential secretaries visit Kimdaejung Convention Center in Gwangju before announcing semiconductor plant investments by Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, Tuesday. Yonhap
Despite committing a combined 4,755 trillion won ($3.05 trillion) to semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure investments in support of the government's balanced development agenda, Samsung Group and SK Group's chipmaking units are now expected to face fresh calls to share excess profits.
Politicians are already floating profit-sharing proposals, such as establishing a national wealth fund financed by additional tax revenue, distributing public dividends or returning a portion of excess profits to underdeveloped rural areas. The government plans to begin public discussions on the issue within a month, with the labor minister describing chipmakers’ "astronomical excess profits" as "the aggregate gains created by society."
In a Facebook post on Sunday, Kim Yong-beom, the presidential chief of staff for policy, said that how to distribute semiconductor companies’ “extraordinary profits between shareholders and workers” would be one of the key questions shaping the country's future.
