Semiconductor market to remain solid ‘at least through next year,’ South Korea finance minister says — SkimNews
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- Lee Hyoung-Il, South Korea's finance minister, said Saturday at the IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok that the semiconductor boom would last "at least through next year" (2027), citing a wide gap between demand and supply and capacity still being added
- His bullish comments came after semiconductor stocks fell sharply that week, hurt by investor concerns about interest-rate hikes and rising competition from Chinese companies
- South Korean chip stocks like SK Hynix and Seoul Semiconductor were part of the sell-off, alongside U.S. giants like Nvidia, fueling extreme volatility in the KOSPI
- Lee attributed those wild swings to semiconductors' outsized share of South Korea's economy compared to other countries, while still calling the domestic economy "solid"
- Lee said the chip boom has driven tax revenue above initial projections and will leave South Korea in a stronger fiscal position
- A Thursday opinion column in Maeil Business Newspaper countered the bullish tone, urging the government to prepare for an AI-boom slowdown and citing two experts who expect a "flood of new supply" to turn the memory market into a "red ocean" by 2029
Why it matters: The finance minister's bullish 2027 outlook is contradicted by a Korean business daily citing experts who warn memory-chip oversupply could arrive by 2029 — a date that sits only two years beyond Lee's forecast window, meaning investors who anchor on his timeline may already be discounting a surplus he calls unlikely.
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