Βy Jihoon Lee

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea‘s finance minister said authorities would put forward detailed tax incentives under corporate reforms aimed at boosting the value of listed companies after seeking more feedback from market participants in coming months.

Minister Choi Sang-mok also pledged in a media pool report released on Tuesday that the government would continue efforts to support the country’s crucial chip industry.

“It is time to discuss concrete measures for the ‘Value-up Programme’. We plan to have two or more opportunities in June and July to gather opinions before the proposal of annual tax code revisions,” Choi was cited as saying in the pool report.

Choi told reporters authorities will seek to balance fairness and effectiveness as they prepare tax benefits for companies participating in the government’s “Corporate Value-up Programme” first proposed in February and aimed at boosting the value of listed companies.

Since the initial proposal fell short of market expectations, South Korea has said it will follow up with tax cuts on corporate income for companies that raise shareholder returns and on dividend income for shareholders in the firms.

The government will also release next month detailed measures to support the country’s semiconductor industry and continue to make improvements of a recently announced support policy package aimed at supporting the global competitiveness of domestic companies, he said.

Choi said South Korea, an export-driven economy, welcomed indications of support for a three-way free trade agreement (FTA) with Japan and China. At a trilateral summit on Monday, leaders of the three countries backed speeding up negotiations for a trilateral FTA.

On the domestic economy, Choi said consumer inflation would likely stabilise in the mid-to-lower 2% range in the second half of the year. He also said that tax revenue in 2024 would be higher than last year, although incomes from corporate tax had so far been weaker than expected.