Trade ministry adds semiconductor growth unit in staffing shuffle

The trade and industry ministry will create a dedicated semiconductor support body and lift its total staff to 820 from 812, the ministry said Tuesday, as it reorganises to carry out a new law aimed at strengthening the chip industry.

The new body, the Semiconductor Innovative Growth Support Team, will sit within the ministry's industrial growth office as a temporary organisation until Sept. 30, 2029, housing three divisions covering semiconductor policy, advanced chips and the industry ecosystem.

The staffing increase amounts to five posts to reinforce the ministry's chip policy function, with three at grade 5 and two at grade 6. Six more staff will go to the newly created divisions, and the support team will receive eight positions, of which five will be temporary — one senior civil servant, one at grade 4 or 5, and one each at grades 5, 6 and 7. The remaining three, one each at grades 4, 5 and 6, will be assigned from the ministry's existing quota.

The reorganisation follows the enactment of a special law on strengthening the competitiveness of the semiconductor industry. The ministry's overall quota rises to 820 from 812.

The same revision creates a Korea-India trade cooperation division under the trade cooperation bureau, also on a temporary basis through Sept. 30, 2028, staffed with four additional posts — one at grade 4, two at grade 5 and one at grade 7 — as the ministry moves to bolster economic and trade ties with India.

A coal industry team is being set up within the industrial and resource security office to handle support for closed mines and the economic development of mining regions as the government restructures the domestic coal sector. The team, created under a flexible staffing system, will operate until Dec. 31, 2028, after which its duties pass to the resource security policy division unless separate rules are set.

The revision also shifts the jurisdiction of the Southern Mine Safety Office, a ministry-affiliated body, from Gwangju and South Jeolla Province to the newly integrated Gwangju-South Jeolla Special City, in line with the special law establishing the merged municipality.