Japan admits first shipment of chemicals to South Korea since trade dispute

Japan approved a shipment of chemicals for the country for the first time since tightening export procedures to South Korea some five weeks ago. These are photoresists, materials that are extremely important in the production of printed circuit boards.

According to Anandtech, South Korean tech companies keep stock of the chemicals for a maximum of two months because they are difficult to store. So there was a risk that companies like LG, Samsung and SK Hynix would run out of inventories, pushing up market prices of PCBs and displays. The other restricted substances, fluorinated polyimide and highly concentrated hydrogen fluoride, are not mentioned in the original article from The Japan Times.

South Korea and Japan disagree on compensation for slavery during World War II. Japan used South Korean slave laborers in a steel mill, and South Korea believes it has not been compensated enough to date. According to Japanese media, the removal of certain chemicals from the export whitelist for South Korea is in response to that country’s statements. Japan denies that.

Japan says it doesn’t normally announce that a shipment of goods is approved for export, but it feels compelled to underline that in order to contradict South Korea’s claims of an export ban. Every shipment of the chemicals now has to be approved by the Japanese authorities, whereas previously it was once every three years. The official motivation for the controls is that Japan wants to prevent the materials from being used for weapons production. South Korea is considering taking similar measures against Japan.