'Korea-Japan Restoration' Speed Race... 'White List' Legislative Notice This Week

"Public Hearings and More Take Over Two Months, but Economic Recovery Catalyst Needed"
Internal Approval Nears Completion Following 'Whitelist Restoration' Directive
Normalization of Whitelist After GSOMIA... Expanding Cooperation

The government plans to complete the decision-making process for revising the whitelist (export control preferential countries) within this week and proceed with the legislative notice. This comes just one day after President Yoon Seok-yeol instructed the initiation of the procedure to restore Japan to the whitelist on the 21st. Having finalized the normalization of GSOMIA (General Security of Military Information Agreement) in the security sector, a major pillar of the recent Korea-Japan summit, the strategy now is to expand the normalization to the economic sector starting with the whitelist.

According to the Presidential Office on the 22nd, the government began revising the 'Strategic Items Export and Import Notice' from the afternoon of the previous day to re-include Japan in the whitelist, which grants mutual export procedure simplification benefits. A Presidential Office official stated, "The goal is to proceed to the legislative notice within this week," adding, "Since this is a simple procedure to revert Japan’s exclusion from the whitelist, we plan to swiftly carry out the prescribed decision-making processes such as internal approvals."

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The whitelist refers to preferential treatment in export licensing procedures for products to allied countries deemed to have no security issues. Japan imposed export restrictions on three key semiconductor materials (hydrofluoric acid, fluorinated polyimide, and photoresist) to South Korea in July 2019 after the South Korean Supreme Court issued a final ruling in October 2018 ordering Japanese defendant companies to compensate forced labor victims. In response, South Korea filed a complaint against Japan’s export restrictions with the World Trade Organization (WTO) in September of the same year.

The Presidential Office expects that including the legislative notice period, the process will take at least two months to complete all procedures such as gathering opinions from related organizations like the Korea International Trade Association and holding hearings. Japan also needs to go through a process of cabinet approval for the ordinance equivalent to a presidential decree.

However, the government intends to minimize internal administrative procedures such as decision-making and hasten the legislative notice to serve as a catalyst for the recovery of economic relations between Korea and Japan. The calculation is that the normalization process can only begin in earnest once GSOMIA and the whitelist, symbols of the severed Korea-Japan relations, are resolved first. The official added, "Since GSOMIA has already entered normalization, a signal for broader exchanges in the economic sector is now necessary." President Yoon also mentioned at the Cabinet meeting the previous day, "We will establish a Korea-Japan dialogue channel for key cooperation areas such as semiconductors and bio," and stated, "The excellent manufacturing technology of Korean companies and the competitiveness of Japanese companies in materials, parts, and equipment will be linked to build a stable supply chain in advanced industries."

Follow-up measures by economic and industrial ministries such as the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups are also progressing rapidly. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has immediately started research on a trade policy model to expand manufacturing network cooperation with Japan, and the Ministry of SMEs and Startups is preparing to dispatch trade delegations for the export of materials, parts, and equipment in cooperation with organizations such as the Small and Medium Business Corporation. A government official explained, "These are measures to attract investment as a key industrial powerhouse in semiconductors, secondary batteries, and bio industries," adding, "Starting from this, cooperation in various economic sectors will begin."

The Presidential Office has also initiated restoration procedures targeting consultative bodies discussing mutual interests between Korea and Japan. The Korea-Japan Economic Security Dialogue at the National Security Council (NSC) level is a representative body where cooperation on key issues such as core technologies and supply chains is discussed in detail. Additionally, dialogues on energy cooperation between the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, regular consultations between the foreign ministers of Korea and Japan, and the development cooperation policy council are also reportedly under discussion for resumption.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.