This photo shows South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol (left) and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida holding talks in Tokyo on March 16. (Yonhap)
South Korea on Monday put Japan back on its "white list" of trusted trading partners, three years after the removal, in a move to improve their bilateral economic and diplomatic relationship, the industry ministry said.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy issued a revision to its public notice on exports and imports of strategic items in the day that calls for restoring Japan's fast-track trade status, allowing companies that export strategic items to Japan to enjoy a shorter period of time for review and simpler paperwork.
The move raised the number of nations given preferential treatment in trade to 29, which includes the United States, France and Britain, it added.
In 2019, South Korea took Japan off its white list following Tokyo's removal of Seoul from its list in an 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.
Last month, however, the two sides vowed the reinstatement after South Korea announced plans to compensate the victims without asking Japan for contributions.
Japan has not yet given details about when South Korea will return to its trade white list, though South Korean officials said Tokyo needs longer domestic procedures for a necessary law revision.
Director-level officials from Seoul and Tokyo will begin another round of trade talks in Tokyo on Monday following a meeting in Seoul last week.
Japan lifted curbs on exports to Seoul of three materials last month -- fluorinated polyimide, photoresist and hydrogen fluoride -- that are critical for the production of semiconductors and displays, which had been in place since 2019. (Yonhap)
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