정부, SK하이닉스 용인공장 위한 수도권 규제완화 착수
The government is pushing to cut red tape... so a new semicondcutor cluster can be built.
Easing regulations would involve asking the land ministry to loosen the limit on the industrial zone size.
Ko Roon-hee explains further.
Korea is one step closer to building a giant semiconductor cluster in the city of Yongin, around 50 kilometers south of Seoul.
The trade ministry announced on Friday... that it has asked the land ministry to see whether it can ease the limits on the size of industrial zones built in metropolitan areas... so that the semiconductor cluster can be built on that scale.
This comes after a special-purpose company,... set up to build semiconductor cluster sites,... submitted a letter of investment intent to the Yongin city government.
It's big news for the chip industry... because SK hynix,... the world's second-biggest memory chip maker, announced on Thursday that if the Yongin site is confirmed... it will invest almost 107 billion U.S. dollars to build four semiconductor manufacturing plants there after 2022.
To get a positive answer from the land ministry, the trade ministry officials laid out the benefits.
First, the ministry said the site will create 17-thousand new jobs.
More importantly, officials estimate that more than 50 subcontractors will join the cluster, ...meaning more cooperation with SK hynix and an increase in overall competitiveness in the field.
But why is it so important at this point to help the chip industry?
The South Korean government believes this is the right time for fresh investment... because the semiconductor industry is facing challenges such as a fall in prices and lower-than-expected demand from data centers.
It's especially important for Korea to maintain its competitiveness... because chip shipments accounted for more than 20-percent of the country's overall exports last year.
Ko Roon-hee, Arirang News.
