Corporate restructuring will get boost

National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa bangs the gavel to approve the “One-Shot” bill aimed at facilitating corporate restructuring after a vote during a plenary parliamentary session, Thursday. / Yonhap

Assembly passes ‘One-Shot’ bill after months of sparring

By Kim Hyo-jin

After months of parliamentary wrangling, parties in the National Assembly passed a bill Thursday establishing laws that reduce legal restrictions on corporations and provide them with tax cut incentives.

The “One-Shot” bill was passed with the support of 174 of 223 present lawmakers during a plenary session at the National Assembly. Twenty-four lawmakers voted against the bill while 25 abstained.

Under the new law, the government will ease regulations and provide tax cuts for companies that realign their business portfolios. It also supports mergers and acquisitions by simplifying the legal procedures.

Saenuri Party lawmaker Rep. Lee Hyun-jae proposed the bill with 26 fellow lawmakers in July 2015 amid worries that legal restrictions and high taxes were burdening Korean firms seeking to reorganize their businesses and aggravating their global competitiveness.

It was one of many economic bills that the ruling party submitted in an effort to back President Park Geun-hye’s drive to revitalize the sluggish economy.

However, the bills were left pending for months while the main opposition Minjoo Party of Korea (MPK) voiced concerns about the bill’s content, worrying that conglomerates could take advantage of the eased rules to expand their businesses.

The opposition party said it changed its stance on the One-Shot bill in an effort to normalize the National Assembly, but other economic bills need more discussions.

The passage of the One-Shot bill is expected to spur inter-party debates on whether to approve other pending bills, party officials said.

Meanwhile, National Assembly Speaker Chung Ui-hwa asked parties to conclude talks by Feb. 12 on redrawing the electoral map for the upcoming election scheduled for April 13, Rep. Lee Choon-suak, MPK vice floor leader, told reporters after meeting with the speaker.

If the parties fail to reach an agreement by the date, Chung said he will put his proposal for redrawing constituency boundaries to a parliamentary vote on Feb. 18 or 19 before the ballot is open to overseas residents.

Chung has been under increasing pressure from Cheong Wa Dae and the ruling party to exercise the authority to table the bill for a vote without bipartisan agreement.

The parties are facing growing public concern about undecided constituency boundaries with only about two months left before the general election.

The talks have been stalled for weeks while the parties trade barbs over economy-related bills proposed by the ruling party and pushed by the presidential office.

The MPK has criticized the Saenuri Party for trying to bundle the issue of redrawing the electoral map in with pending economic and labor bills. The Saenuri Party feared that it could lose a bargaining chip if it agrees with the MPK on redrawing the constituency map first.

The labor bills, devised to reform the rigid labor market, drew strong opposition by the MPK and the labor sector, expressing concerns over the unstable status of the non-regular workers. The opposition particularly took issue with the contents of the bill that will increase the number of industries permitted to temporarily dispatch workers to other enterprises.