Gwangju-Jeonnam Chip Cluster and National Growth Fund Pair Regional Development with Industrial Investment
A National Land and Space Transformation public-private meeting chaired by President Lee Jae-myung, scheduled for Monday, is expected to unveil a large-scale semiconductor investment plan for the Honam region by Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix. Candidate sites include the Advanced 3rd Industrial Complex, Haenam Solar Sido, and the Gwangju Airport site; a presidential office official reportedly previewed that the investment figure would exceed market expectations. Equipment-order expectations ahead of any new fab lifted TES, PSK, and Wonik IPS.
Kwon Soon-woo called the move significant on three fronts: domestic chipmakers, long criticized for low return on equity from hoarding cash, are finally reinvesting profits; the investment is directed domestically rather than overseas; and it concentrates in the relatively underdeveloped Honam region. He argued that, unlike past regional-development spending diluted by political horse-trading across multiple provinces, this concentrated chip-cluster investment — anchored by power and water infrastructure — could become a model case.
The National Growth Fund's first investments — in LegoChem Biosciences and LIG Defense & Aerospace — also drew policy attention as the government's first direct selection of promising firms, seen as a credibility-conferring endorsement. That said, the market's muted reaction, given the funding came via convertible preferred stock rather than an outright equity stake, was noted as a limitation.
Hosts also called for reform of the National Pension Service's market-stabilizing role, noting that the public ETF market consists only of mechanically index-tracking passive funds, while active strategies that could buy dips and dampen volatility remain confined to the private-fund space. They cited cases where ETFs were delisted for outperforming their benchmark by too wide a margin, flagging institutional reform as a longer-term priority.