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| Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon speaks during a meeting with ministers over Japan's export restrictions to Korea at the Government Complex in Seoul, Thursday. Yonhap |
By Nam Hyun-woo
Japan has approved the shipments of its semiconductor materials to Korea, the first of its kind since July 4 when Tokyo imposed export restrictions on three key semiconductor and display ingredients against Seoul, according to the government Thursday.
"Japan has granted the export of a batch of photoresist for extreme ultraviolet (EUV) chip making technology, which is one of the three materials Tokyo placed export restrictions on last month," Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon said during a meeting with ministers at the Government Complex in Seoul.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy also said it has confirmed a single transaction of photoresist from Japan to Korea. Japanese newspapers alleged the photoresist appears to be heading to "Samsung Group."
Photoresist is a light-sensitive material, critical for manufacturing semiconductors. The material is particularly indispensable for EUV technology that enables Samsung and other chipmakers to produce smaller and less power-hungry non-memory semiconductors.
On July 4, Japan changed its export control rules to have the three materials ― photoresist, hydrogen fluoride and fluorinated polyimide ― "licensed individually," meaning authorities will check the content of export for each transaction, thus slowing down the materials' export to Korea.
Since July 4, none of the three materials were granted to be shipped from Japan to Korea, with analysts anticipating up to 90 days would take for a transaction to be permitted. However, the photoresist which Lee mentioned cleared of the process relatively quickly due to the track record of shipping, industry officials said.
The move came a day after Japan promulgated a revision of its trade control rule and removed Korea from its "whitelist" of countries receiving preferential trade status, which is a prelude to additional export restrictions following the July 4 measure.
Though Japan apparently slowed down its trade tantrums by not specifying which items will follow the three semiconductor ingredients, both governments' officials said the tensions between the two countries still remain.
"The Japanese government did not add new materials to the list of exports to Korea it controls, but it announced Korea's exclusion of the whitelist," Lee said. "Japan's economic attack on Korea does not match Tokyo's status as a leading country and a beneficiary of global free trade scheme."
Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade, and Industry Hiroshige Seko also said in a press conference on Thursday that "the Korean government is making unfair criticism that Japan's move is something like an export embargo."
The export restrictions appear to be a retaliation to last year's Supreme Court rulings here calling for Japanese firms to compensate surviving Korean victims of wartime forced labor.
