‘Tailored’ benefits on offer for Tesla plant

S Korea will do its best to support a factory by electric-vehicle maker, president tells Musk

South Korea will offer “tailored” incentives to encourage Tesla to set up an electric-vehicle factory in the country and will minimise any risks posed by militant unions, President Yoon Suk-yeol has said.

Yoon held a video call with Tesla chief executive Elon Musk last week and the president’s office cited Musk as saying South Korea was among the candidate locations for a new Tesla factory.

“If Tesla, SpaceX or other companies are considering more investment in Korea including constructing a gigafactory, the government will do our best to support the investment,” Yoon told Reuters.

He said South Korea offered highly skilled workers and his government would ensure regulations aligned with international standards so that foreign firms did not face unexpected hurdles.

“We are preparing a tailored approach to grant some advantages to these specified companies,” Yoon said through an interpreter, when asked about what advantage South Korea could offer to Tesla over other locations being mentioned.

Tesla said it would consider building another factory. Canada, Indonesia, India and Thailand have also been mentioned in media reports as possible locations, but analysts noted that those countries did not have the kind of automotive supply chain that South Korea had, although some were abundant in natural resources such as nickel.

Yoon credited his government’s tough response to labour union strikes this year for starting the process of establishing a rule of law in industrial relations for both management and labour.

We are preparing a tailored approach to grant some advantages to these specified companies

SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT YOON SUK-YEOL

His government is taking steps to use an administrative order to force unionised truckers to go back to work after talks aimed at ending their strike did not yield any results on Monday.

About 9,600 truckers have joined the strike organised by a union, demanding a permanent guarantee of a minimum freight rate to protect against rising fuel costs and overwork.

“The militant union culture is a serious problem in South Korean society,” Yoon said. He said he told Musk the goal of his labour policy was to establish the rule of law to eliminate the risks of unfair labour practices.

South Korea saw an average of 39 days of work stoppage annually because of labour disputes over the past 10 years, nearly five times higher than that of the United States’ eight days and nearly 200 times higher than Japan’s 0.2 days, according to the Korea Enterprises Federation.