The National Assembly on Thursday will convene the first plenary meeting of the January extraordinary session.

At the center of attention is the possible passage of a bill granting small companies a two-year extension to the grace period for the Serious Accident Punishment Act that was enacted in 2022 to reduce accidents at workplaces run by larger firms.

The initial two-year grace period exempting firms with five to 49 employees from the industrial law under which employers can face a minimum one-year prison sentence in the event of a major accident is set to expire on Saturday.

The floor leaders of the ruling People Power Party and the main opposition Democratic Party(DP) held a meeting on Wednesday to decide whether to pass the bill in the plenary session, but failed to narrow differences.

Another vote pertains to a special bill aimed at building a railway connecting the southeastern city Daegu and southwestern city Gwangju that includes a special exemption from the compulsory preliminary feasibility study in order to expedite the project.

Also in the session, National Assembly Speaker Kim Jin-pyo may express his position regarding the forcible removal of Rep. Kang Sung-hee by the Presidential Security Service(PSS) at an event last week.

The DP and three minor opposition parties on Wednesday requested that the speaker express his stance regarding the incident in which PSS agents gagged and carried Kang out after the president had moved far away from him following their handshake.