Park Taesung, Vice Chairman of Battery Association, "China Likely Has No Suitable Battery Regulation Card Beyond Graphite"

"Effectiveness of Graphite Export Controls Not Significant"

Park Tae-sung, Executive Vice President of the Korea Battery Industry Association, met with reporters on the 24th at Maison Glad Jeju during the ‘2023 K-Battery Research and Development (R&D) Forum’ and said, “Recently, China’s graphite export controls are targeting the United States, not Korea,” adding, “I believe this is a message to the U.S. in the context of strategic competition between the U.S. and China ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit to be held next month in San Francisco.” He explained, “It should be understood as a ‘counterattack’ against the U.S. semiconductor export controls on China.”

Vice President Park predicted that China would not introduce additional sanction measures in the battery sector. He stated, “Among critical minerals, graphite is the only one China can control,” and “the rest are processed products such as lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, for which there is no legal basis to impose export controls.”

Unlike minerals mined and owned domestically, processed products are made by importing minerals from overseas for processing and refining, so there is no ownership and thus they cannot be controlled under international law. “Just looking at Chinese companies investing in precursors in Korea shows that the effectiveness of graphite export controls will not be significant,” he said.

Park Tae-sung, Vice Chairman of the Korea Battery Industry Association. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung aymsdream@

He also emphasized the need for support measures like the U.S. battery sector’s tax credit direct refund system for battery companies that have invested but have yet to generate profits. The direct refund system allows companies to receive cash refunds for tax credits they cannot use due to lack of profits or to transfer them to third parties. Vice President Park said, “Although four national advanced strategic industry specialized complexes in the secondary battery sector have been designated, no companies have yet seen concrete regulatory relaxation effects or received investment incentives,” adding, “We will promptly consult with local governments so that companies can receive practical benefits.”

Regarding the domestic battery industry’s vulnerabilities, he pointed to the research and development (R&D) sector. He said, “We need to increase investment scale and expand manpower,” and “it should also be promoted in the form of global joint research.” In his welcoming remarks at the event, Vice President Park noted, “The R&D scale of the three major battery companies is one-fifteenth that of semiconductors,” and stressed, “A super-large national R&D project exceeding 1 trillion won is needed in the battery sector.”

The World Battery Forum will be held in Korea for the first time next year. Vice President Park said, “Last September, world battery associations gathered in Spain and agreed to hold the World Battery Forum launch ceremony in Korea,” adding, “This is an expansion of the ‘Global Secondary Battery Regulatory Forum,’ which had focused on regulations and policies, and we plan to further enlarge its scale going forward.”

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