S. Korea To Reopen WTO Complaint Concerning Japan's Export Restrictions - Trade Ministry

South Korea intends to once again send a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding Japan's export barriers, Na Seung-sik, an official of the country's Trade, Industry and Energy Ministry said on Tuesday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 02nd June, 2020) South Korea intends to once again send a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) regarding Japan's export barriers, Na Seung-sik, an official of the country's Trade, Industry and Energy Ministry said on Tuesday.

The South Korean government abandoned its WTO objections to the Japanese trade restrictions last year as a gesture of goodwill to reach a rapprochement with Tokyo and settle the ongoing trade row, which began in 2019 when Japan banned the shipping of crucial materials for the high-tech industry to South Korea.

"Japan has not been showing a willingness to settle the dispute, and no progress has been made ... Accordingly, we will reopen the dispute-settlement process at the WTO over (Japan's) exports control of the three products," the official said, as quoted by Yonhap news agency.

In 2018, the Supreme Court of Korea upheld a decision requiring Japan's Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. to compensate four South Korean nationals for using forced labor during the Second World War.

The decision caused an outcry in Japan, which claimed that the 1965 agreement between the two countries had resolved the issue of damages once and for all.

In July 2019, Tokyo canceled preferential treatment for the export of fluorinated polyimides, photoresist and hydrogen fluoride to South Korea, dealing a serious blow to the nation's high-tech industries, followed by the August 2 decision to stop treating Seoul as a trusted trade partner, adding stricter customs procedures for a total of 1,194 items exported to South Korea.

In September, Seoul filed a complaint to the WTO over the Japanese trade practices.