Japan on Thursday lifted export restrictions on chemicals needed to make semiconductors to South Korea, hours after the South Korean president arrived in Tokyo for a bilateral summit.
For his part, South Korea’s Commerce Minister indicated that the country would withdraw its complaint filed with the World Trade Organization (WTO), which was suspended on March 1.
Lee Chang-yang pointed out that during talks this week, the two countries reached an agreement on limits on key chemical materials purchased by South Korean companies for the production of screens and memory “microchips”.
The restrictions were introduced by Tokyo in early July 2019 for security reasons.
Weeks later, extending the restrictions, the Japanese government announced that it would remove South Korea from its “white list” of trading partners, a special status that Seoul has had since 2004 along with a group of 26 countries.
Seoul did not take long to apply the same measure, escalating tensions between the two countries.
South Korea’s Ministry of Commerce said the two countries will continue discussions on a possible re-application of preferential trading partner status on a bilateral basis.
South Korea will invest 300 billion won (214 million euros) to build the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing center in two decades, South Korea’s industry ministry said on Wednesday.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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