Anchor: The National Pension Service says it plans to use its voting rights to ensure that large investment firms are, in its words, acting sincerely in the interests of their stakeholders. The pension announced it will start intervening in private business decisions if it has to, using its massive amount of corporate stocks. 
Ricky Bushaway has more.

Report: Monday's announcement by the National Pension Service is a follow-through on its pledge late last year to introduce new stewardship rules.

The NPS now says it will actively use its voting rights to influence companies that it deems to be neglecting their corporate responsibility.

South Korea's NPS is the world's third-largest pension fund, and its holdings of about 636 trillion won or 570 billion U.S. dollars give it considerable leverage as a market stakeholder.

Health and Welfare Minister Park Neung-hoo says the NPS will provide a boost to companies that are financially healthy and that maintain good levels of corporate social responsibility. 

Proponents of the new guidelines say they will strengthen monitoring of corporate governance, particularly among South Korea's enormous conglomerates.


Critics of the new guidelines say they will give the NPS, or the government, too much power to essentially interfere with private business decisions. The pension service has been criticized in the past for allegedly rubber-stamping agenda items which have benefited major shareholders and senior management.
Ricky Bushaway, KBS World Radio News.