South Korea and Japan signed an agreement Tuesday that calls for enhancing cooperation on their export control policies through active consultations, Seoul’s industry ministry said.
Under the memorandum of cooperation (MOC), the two sides agreed to have a director-level policy dialogue on export control issues twice a year and hold meetings “in a swift manner” when necessary to find proper countermeasures when related issues occur.
The MOC was signed during a video conference held earlier in the day between director-level officials of the two sides, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.
The agreement came two weeks after Japan announced a decision to redesignate South Korea as a “Group A” nation, or a white-listed country of trusted trading partners. The decision will come into force on July 21.
In 2019, Tokyo downgraded South Korea to “Group B” after imposing export restrictions on three key industry materials in apparent retaliation against the South Korean Supreme Court rulings the previous year that ordered two Japanese companies to pay compensation to Korean forced labor victims during Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula.
But the two sides vowed to enact the reinstatement earlier this year after South Korea announced plans to compensate the victims without asking Japan for contributions.
Japan lifted the export curbs on Seoul in March after South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida agreed to make joint efforts to improve bilateral ties, and South Korea put Japan back on its white list the following month.
“The reinstatement marked the full restoration of bilateral trust in the export control field, and the two sides agreed to create a framework to ensure stronger bilateral cooperation on future export curb issues,” the ministry said in a release.
“Based on the MOC, we will strive further to share information on related matters more actively and to manage the situation in a stable manner,” it added.
Source: Yonhap News Agency