Japan to restore preferred trade status for South Korea

Tokyo, April 28 (BNA): The Japanese Ministry of Commerce said on Friday that it has begun measures to restore South Korea’s preferential trade status, days after Seoul took a similar step to Tokyo and asked for reciprocity, and after more than three years of downgrading the countries. each other during a bitter historical dispute.

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said talks with South Korea this month showed its controls on trade in sensitive items with civilian and military uses are now as effective as those used by Japan, the Associated Press reports.

As a result, she said, she proposed that South Korea be returned to the list of countries with preferential Japanese trading status, subject to a one-month public comment period that ends May 31. The list currently includes 26 countries including the United States, Britain, Canada, France and Germany.

The move would end a trade dispute that began in July 2019 when Japan removed South Korea from a “white list” of countries that secured fast trade approvals, in apparent retaliation for South Korean court rulings in 2018 that ordered Japanese companies to compensate Korea. Laborers due to abuse and forced labor during World War II, when the Korean Peninsula was a Japanese colony.

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