South Korea is now aiming to unleash 10 trillion won ($7.3 billion) as incentives to grow the semiconductor industry.
In an effort to strengthen the semiconductor industry in the country, South Korea is now aiming to unleash 10 trillion won ($7.3 billion) as incentives. According to the country’s Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, the government is now extremely occupied with senior leaders in the country to allocate billions of dollars of funds for the program.
In a candid meeting with the country’s in-house makers of chip materials, equipment, and parts the minister added that the funds can be allocated from state-owned Korea Development Bank or a joint fund from public, private and policy financing. Additional details on the funds are yet to be proclaimed by the finance minister, who is also the deputy prime minister of the country.
According to a previous report of Circuit Digest, South Korea also intends to grow the industry by developing artificial intelligence chips and high-bandwidth memory. Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun has told the media that this association will help to achieve the target of $120 billion in exports annually. In the meantime, SK Hynix, South Korea’s leading memory chip maker, is looking forward to set-up another four units of the fabrication plants with an outlay of USD 89.5 billion by 2046. The company aims to manufacture NAND Flash and DRAM memory chips in the new units.
The finance minister in consultation with the cabinet has decided to unleash this incentive because the US is continuously forcing all its allies to tighten and take strict measures against China’s access to semiconductor and other key technologies. In fact, Bloomberg has also reported that South Korea is even urged by the US to restrict export of equipment and technologies for manufacturing cutting-edge logic and memory chips to China. Currently, South Korea is the globe’s largest manufacturer of memory chipsets, which is now looking deeply to invest $470 billion in a semiconductor “mega cluster” outside Seoul. To make it a reality, the government is willing to provide tax incentives for investments.
