US President-elect Donald Trump has not yet taken office, and the global semiconductor industry is already preparing to take a blow in the form of increased customs duties on imports of Chinese-made components. In South Korea, representatives of the ruling parliamentary party are ready to defend national chip suppliers.
Image Source: Samsung Electronics
One of the initiatives mentioned by Reuters involves providing South Korean chip manufacturers with subsidies and exemptions from restrictions on employee working hours. Under pressure from trade unions, the latter was set in South Korea at 52 hours a week, but for the same Samsung it is now proposed to make an exception so that highly qualified specialists involved in the development of advanced technologies can devote more time to work on a regular basis.
South Korea’s economy has the fourth-largest GDP in Asia and semiconductor components accounted for 16% of its exports last year, so lawmakers are trying to protect the interests of chipmakers. Last week, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned the public that a potential increase in tariffs on chip imports into the United States could push Chinese manufacturers to lower prices in export markets, which would negatively impact the business of South Korean suppliers outside their home country. . At the same time, things are not going very well for Samsung Electronics. According to rumors, it is forced to begin reducing the number of foreign personnel and is reducing the volume of contract production by almost half. Samsung is still the largest memory manufacturer in the world, but in the promising HBM area it is far behind SK hynix.