▲ Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeong-kwan
The government is scheduled to brief the National Assembly behind closed doors today (September 22) on the details of its negotiations for investment in the United States.
The National Assembly's Strategy and Finance Committee and the Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee are set to hold a plenary meeting at 9:30 a.m. today to receive closed-door briefings from the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy regarding the progress and specific details of the U.S. investment negotiations.
Nominee for Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Lee Hyung-il is expected to attend the Strategy and Finance Committee session, while Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeong-kwan and Trade Negotiator General Park Jung-sung are expected to attend the Trade and Industry Committee session.
Today's briefing will be held in the presence of government officials and lawmakers belonging to the respective standing committees only.
Specialist advisors and aides of the standing committees were barred from attending for security reasons, considering that negotiations with the U.S. side are currently underway.
As the first U.S. investment project, the construction of the $22.3 billion Encinal gas-fired combined cycle power plant in Texas is seen as the leading candidate.
As follow-up projects, the construction of eight large-scale nuclear reactors in the United States and the Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) development project are being discussed.
Following the summit meeting in November last year, South Korea and the United States agreed on a joint fact sheet that includes a U.S. investment project where South Korea will invest a total of $200 billion in the United States, capped at $20 billion annually.
If the first U.S. investment project is finalized, it will mark the first actual implementation of the U.S. investment plan agreed upon at the time.
Originally, the government was scheduled to brief the National Assembly on the U.S. investment negotiation details on September 17.
However, as differences between South Korea and the United States over investment conditions remained unresolved, the schedule was postponed once.
It remains unclear whether various contentious issues have been resolved in a short period of time.
During the negotiation process, the South Korean side reportedly put forward the principle of "commercial rationality" and demanded safety measures to prevent the risk of losses, while the U.S. side pressured South Korea to postpone discussions on safety measures and prioritize the implementation of investment first.
If the tug-of-war between the two countries continues and fails to find common ground, projections are raised that the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) for the first U.S. investment project, originally presented as the target time of late September, could be delayed.
Meanwhile, the Trade and Industry Committee meeting will also discuss the implementation plan for the parliamentary audit, the adoption of witnesses, and the adoption of the confirmation hearing progress report for nominee for SMEs and Startups Minister Lee So-young.
The Trade and Industry Committee is expected to adopt nominee Lee's hearing report while jointly noting grounds for "unsuitability," such as holding a "single house as a non-resident" and a lack of expertise in the small and medium-sized enterprise and small merchant sectors, which were pointed out during the confirmation hearing.
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