Yoon proposes fund focused on production, not redistribution
People Power Party lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun called Monday for the creation of an "AI production sovereignty fund," arguing that the won's recent slide to near 1,550 per dollar should be channeled into building the country's future productive capacity rather than redistributed.
Writing on his Facebook page, Yoon said the won-dollar exchange rate approached 1,550 during trading last Friday — its highest level in 17 years, since the 2009 global financial crisis — and urged that "the number that inspires fear" be turned into "seed money for production."
Yoon attributed the won's sharp depreciation to a prolonged interest rate gap between South Korea and the United States, a flight of foreign capital amid concerns over an AI bubble and geopolitical instability, and spillover weakness from the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan. "Ultimately, the current high exchange rate reflects not simply a strong dollar but a test of our economy's underlying strength," he said.
He noted, however, that some players stand to benefit from the weak won. "Export conglomerates profit when they convert dollar-denominated earnings back into won," Yoon said. "The cost burden of imported raw materials and equipment is real, but it is hard to deny that large export companies are the beneficiaries of a high exchange rate environment."
He then asked whether those currency gains should simply accumulate on corporate balance sheets or be redirected toward building South Korea's future productive capacity. "This is not simply a call to collect and distribute," he added.
Yoon acknowledged that some voices in the United States have proposed clawing back profits from major AI companies and paying them out as dividends to citizens, but said South Korea must take a different path. "Clawbacks and dividends alone cannot generate the engine of production," he said.
He pointed to Britain's recent launch of an AI sovereignty fund involving direct investment in domestic AI companies — a strategy of growing future industries alongside the private sector rather than seizing corporate wealth. "That is why I am proposing an 'AI production sovereignty fund,'" he said.
Yoon outlined three principles for the fund: incentivize rather than extract; expand access to production opportunities rather than distribute cash; and invest in the future precisely when times are hardest.
He acknowledged the idea would not be easy to execute. "How to calculate currency gains and what form of incentive would be most effective requires careful design," he said. "But the question we must pursue for the nation's future is not who to take from, but what we can build together."
Yoon said whether 1,550 remains a symbol of crisis or becomes the starting point of a new era of production sovereignty "depends on our choices." "I believe South Korea must be a country that makes AI, not merely consumes it — a country of production, not dividends," he said. "That is the answer a new conservatism must offer in the face of crisis."
bigroot@heraldcorp.com
