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South Korean Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum talks to business leaders at a roundtable meeting Thursday at the office of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Seoul. (pool photo)

The Moon Jae-in administration is growing quite cozy with the South Korean business world.

After a luncheon Wednesday in which Moon invited the leaders of South Korea’s four major groups — Samsung, Hyundai Motor, LG and SK — to the Blue House, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum had a meeting Thursday with representatives of five major business organizations, including the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), the Korea Enterprises Federation (KEF) and the Korea Federation of SMEs.

When the leaders of the four major groups were invited to the Blue House on Wednesday, it was the first such event since the Moon administration took office in 2017. It was intended as a gesture of thanks for the groups’ “gift basket” of 44 trillion won (US$38.98 billion) in investment during a South Korea-US summit last month — but the meeting was still seen as unusual.

On Friday, Blue House policy chief Lee Ho-seung is scheduled to meet with presidents of the five major business groups alongside Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Moon Sung-wook.

Taking advantage of the shift in the Blue House’s mood, business world figures have been ramping up their requests for a pardon for Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong.

The pardon requests during the meeting between the Prime Minister and the heads of five economic organizations at the KCCI office in Seoul on Thursday afternoon were even more emphatic than during the luncheon with Moon the day before.

In his introductory remarks, KEF Chairman Sohn Kyung-shik said, “Judging from the current trends in the global semiconductor market, the dominance that we have maintained to date could be broken.”

“Our economic groups have jointly proposed a pardon for Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong,” he continued. “We once again petition the government to give consideration to this issue.”

The issue of pardoning Lee has already been raised several times behind closed doors.

In a press conference held after the meeting, Sohn even mentioned he had “expressed the urgency” of pardoning Lee Jae-yong. In response, the prime minister’s office reported that Kim would “convey the suggestions of the business world to the president.”

At a Blue House luncheon the previous day, the presidents of the four major groups discussed the issue with the president in “indirect terms,” to which Moon replied, “The public also agrees with many parts [of this],” a step forward from his previous statements on this issue.

However, some are critical of what appears to be the Blue House considering the pardon of a chaebol president as a potential “reward” for investment by large corporations.

“I am worried that the continued meetings between business leaders, the president and high-level bureaucrats are designed to send a signal to the public on the pardoning of Lee Jae-yong to gauge the reaction,” said Lee Ju-han, lawyer and executive member of the People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy’s Economy and Finance Center.

“It is true that the Moon administration has taken the initiative in chaebol reform, including passing three major laws to improve fairness in the economy, but the job is not done yet. The issue of whether to pardon Lee Jae-yong could become a key determinant in chaebol reform.”

Kim Woo-chan, Korea University professor and leader of Solidarity for Economic Reform, said, “Conglomerate investment is mainly concentrated in process industries, so it won’t have much of a job-creation effect. While it is fine to listen to the business world, [the government] should not give in to any unilateral demands such as pardoning [Lee Jae-yong] or easing regulations in return for creating jobs.”

By Lee Wan, staff reporter

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