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In New Year, parliament approves budget, spy agency reform bills

After an overnight tug-of-war, South Korea's lawmakers approved this year's budget bill early Wednesday morning.

The National Assembly also passed a set of key bills including those on reforming the state spy agency, accused of meddling in the country's latest presidential election, and legislation aimed at luring foreign investment.

The passage of the bills came after a months-long parliamentary stand-off over the National Intelligence Service (NIS). The NIS is accused of mobilizing some of its agents to post Internet comments in favor of then-ruling party candidate Park Geun-hye during the presidential race in late 2012.

The ruling Saenuri Party accepted the main opposition Democratic Party-led bill to reform the spy agency in return for its cooperation in passing the 355.8 trillion won ($340.5 billion) budget bill for 2014.

The NIS reform bill is designed to strictly ban NIS agents from being involved in domestic politics and enable lawmakers to monitor the agency's activities and budget more closely.

Meanwhile, the so-called foreigners' investment promotion bill allows subsidiaries of the country's conglomerates to set up joint ventures with foreign firms without having to own a 100 percent share in the joint firms. The bill pushed down the compulsory share ownership to 50 percent.

It is expected to help the country's two conglomerates focused on oil refining -- SK and GS Group -- subsidiaries of which are seeking to set up joint ventures with Japanese firms.

A separate bill, which also passed Wednesday, bans new cross-shareholding investments among conglomerate affiliates, a practice that has long been denounced as a tool for owner families to control their business empires with small stakes.

The revision to the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act is part of the "economic democratization" campaign aimed at keeping tighter reins on conglomerates amid longstanding public criticism that they have abused their market dominance and preyed on smaller businesses.

Banning new cross-shareholding investments was one of Park's major campaign pledges.

Under the revision, which is expected to take effect in the second half of the new year, subsidiaries of a conglomerate with total assets of more than 5 trillion won cannot make new cross-shareholding or circular investments among themselves.

But such an investment can be allowed if it takes place as part of mergers and acquisitions or as part of restructuring ailing firms. Also to be allowed are new investments aimed at strengthening the existing arrangements.

The Assembly also passed a bill that calls for strengthening the punishment for child abuse.

Under the bill, those convicted of abusing children to death should be sentenced to a minimum of five years in prison and up to life imprisonment.

Those involved in serious abuse that threatens the lives of victims or leaves them disabled or with hard-to-treat illnesses will be punished with at least three years in prison, according to the bill. (Yonhap News)