<As you
heard>
there are a lot of things to discuss at this summit. In particular, in the economic field, along with the issue of semiconductor export control, there seems to be talk about Japan re-including Korea in the so-called white list, which is a preferential country for export examination.

Reporter Kim Kwan-jin covered this story.

<Reporter>

In 2019, Japan restricted exports to South Korea on three items essential to semiconductor processing: hydrogen fluoride, photoresist, and polyimide.

At that time, there were concerns that semiconductor factories might stop as dependence on Japan reached up to 93%, but the domestic industry diversified import sources to Taiwan, Belgium, and the United States, and succeeded in developing localization, greatly reducing dependence on Japan in four years.

[Kim Jung-ho/Professor of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at KAIST: It's more of a political declaration, but I don't think it's actually about saving semiconductors by unplugging what has been blocked. There are regulations, but they haven't actually enforced them. There is no impact on the Korean industry at the moment.]

At that time, Japan also excluded Korea from the white list, which is a country subject to preferential export procedures.

By eliminating the benefits of simplifying export procedures to friendly countries, each export of strategic goods has been granted an individual license, and the amount of direct investment by Japanese companies in Korea has decreased by nearly 4%.

Domestic companies' investment in Japan also fell by 60%.

For this reason, the industry emphasizes that restoring the white list status is very important to restore the industrial supply chain between Korea and Japan.

The export management policy dialogue between the two countries, which has been suspended for three years, is expected to resume soon, and the government has said it plans to address both export control and the white list as major issues.

However, even if we agree to reinstate, it may take some time to revise the regulations in Japan again, so we must demand prompt follow-up.

(Video editing by Choi Hye-young)

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