Industry Minister Kim Jeong-gwan warns KCCI of “decisive action beyond strong regret”

[Financial News] Minister of Trade, Industry and Energy Kim Jeong-gwan has vowed a hard-line response against the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), which sparked a "fake news" controversy with a press release on the overseas outflow of high-net-worth individuals from Korea.
On the 7th, Kim wrote on his Facebook page, "By circulating information that lacked credibility and had not even been fact-checked, KCCI caused serious confusion among the public, the markets, and government policy as a whole." He went on, "In particular, given that unverified information spread maliciously, this clearly constitutes fake news, and we will go beyond expressing strong regret and take decisive action."
Kim stated that MOTIE, as the ministry in charge of overseeing KCCI, will immediately conduct an audit into how the press release was drafted and distributed, as well as the overall factual basis, and will hold those responsible strictly to account depending on the results. He also signaled his willingness to pursue administrative measures.
He added, "In cooperation with relevant agencies and major business organizations, we will actively pursue institutional and administrative measures to block the very mechanisms that allow unverified information or fake news to circulate."
Earlier, on the 3rd, KCCI issued a press release on a report titled "Study on Inheritance Tax Revenue Projections and the Effects of Diversifying Payment Methods." Citing research by UK immigration consultancy Henley & Partners, the release stated that 2,400 high-net-worth individuals left Korea last year, double the figure from the previous year and the fourth-highest number in the world. KCCI pointed to the burden of inheritance tax as the cause.
However, critics argued that Henley & Partners' research methodology was so weak that the results were difficult to trust, and that KCCI interpreted the findings in a self-serving way, even though the original report nowhere explicitly stated that people were leaving Korea because of inheritance tax. President Lee Jae-myung said on X (formerly Twitter) on the 7th, "Deliberate fake news intended to cloud the judgment of the sovereign people is an enemy of democracy." KCCI later issued an official apology, admitting that it had failed to sufficiently verify external statistics.

junjun@fnnews.com Reporter Choi Yong-jun Reporter