South Korea officially excluded Japan from its list of trade partners affecting the latter’s fast-track approvals in trade, meaning that South Korean companies will now have to submit five documents to win individual approval, which is more than the previous three, Yonhap news agency reports.
The news that S. Korea would downgrade Japan from its trading list follow Japan’s move on removing South Korea from its white list in late August, amid an escalating trade war between the world’s most powerful economies, US and China, and is expected to further disrupt supply chains.
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This development means that now South Korean companies will be able to ship their goods to Japan by issuing five documents to get an individual approval in comparison to the previous three documents that they had to issue. In the meantime, the previous trading relation would take five days, whereas the new developments resulted to the approval process taking about 15 days.
Yonhap reports that South Koreans have been boycotting Japanese products such as beers, cosmetics and cars, while also tourism to Japan has been forbidden.
Overall, the dispute between the two countries is a result of South Korea’s expectations for compensation for forced labor and sexual slavery by Japan before and during World War II.
