Samsung executive-turned-lawmaker to chair Assembly semiconductor committee

Rep. Yang Hyang-ja / Korea Times file

Rep. Yang Hyang-ja, a Samsung Electronics executive-turned-lawmaker, said Sunday she had decided to accept an offer from the ruling People Power Party to chair an envisioned special National Assembly committee on semiconductors.

The decision drew attention because Yang is considered an opposition figure though she left the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea and became an independent last year amid allegations one of her aides sexually harassed a colleague.

"Semiconductors represent the economy and national security," Yang said on Facebook announcing her decision to accept the PPP's proposal, adding there is "no opposition or ruling party or ideology" when it comes to semiconductors.

"Our country's semiconductor industry stands at a crossroads between leaping forward or declining," she said. "We are in a situation so critical that an opposition figure has been offered the chairmanship of a special committee of the ruling party for the first time."

Yang is known for rising to the rank of an executive at Samsung Electronics in 2014 after joining the company as a vocational high school graduate with no college degree in 1985. She was elected to the National Assembly in 2020. (Yonhap)