Japan to allow 1st export of chemicals to S. Korea under tighter export controls

Japan will soon issue its first permit for exporting to South Korea some of the chemicals needed in producing semiconductors and display panels since imposing tighter controls last month, local media quoted sources with knowledge of the matter as saying Thursday.

South Korean protesters demonstrate in front of the Japanese Embassy in Seoul on August 7, 2019. [File photo: Yonhap/IC]

On July 4, Japan made it a requirement to file applications for each transaction for exporting fluorinated polyimide, hydrogen fluoride and photoresist to South Korea.

The move was believed by Seoul to be economic retaliation for its mishandling of an arbitration process connected to a wartime labor row stemming from Japan's 1910-1945 colonial rule of the Korean Peninsular.

Japan believes the matter of compensation for wartime laborers was dealt with "finally and irreversibly" in a 1965 pact inked between both sides that covered the issue.

Tokyo, has maintained that the tighter export controls have been put into place due to reasons of national security, but has also called Seoul out for repeatedly breaching previous pacts and causing mutual trust to be diminished.