S. Korea, US discuss supply chain, export control

South Korea's industry ministry said Friday it has discussed ways to expand ties in addressing supply chain and export control issues with Washington under a regular bilateral dialogue.

Industry Minister Ahn Duk-geun and his US counterpart, Gina Raimondo, discussed related matters during the Supply Chain Commercial Dialogue in Washington on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy.

The SCCD is a regular ministerial forum, proposed during US President Joe Biden's visit to Seoul in May 2022, designed to promote resilient supply chains for key products, including semiconductors, batteries and critical minerals. The first meeting was held in April last year.

During the meeting, the two officials agreed that "significant and substantive progress" is being made through the SCCD, including discussions on the supply chain resilience of the chip industry.

They also vowed to "continue discussions through an SCCD Critical Minerals Sub-Working Group" to deepen their collaboration in the critical minerals supply chain.

The two officials also noted that bilateral cooperation in the chip sector has been deepening, highlighting non-binding preliminary memoranda of terms signed between the US Commerce Department and Samsung Electronics to support the establishment of a state-of-the-art industrial ecosystem in Texas.

Ahn and Raimondo "agreed to continue existing export control cooperation to address national security threats while minimizing supply chain disruption under the dual-use export controls working group."

"The secretary and minister also committed to exploring opportunities for collaboration in third countries, where governments are seeking to increase their access to investment and global markets to enhance economic opportunity for their citizens," the two countries added in a joint statement. (Yonhap)