China News Service, June 18, according to Korean media reports, on the 18th, the Permanent Mission of South Korea to Geneva said that it had submitted an application to the World Trade Organization for the establishment of a dispute settlement agency expert group in response to Japan's trade restrictions with South Korea.
According to reports, after the Korean side submitted its application, the WTO Dispute Settlement Agency meeting scheduled for 29th will focus on this topic.
It is reported that the proposal to set up an expert group is one of the measures to appeal to the WTO, which is equivalent to the expert group of the dispute settlement agency of the first-instance procedure of the WTO. The two sides will review the trade dispute between the two parties.
The Japan Broadcasting Association (NHK) also received relevant information from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of the Republic of Korea on the same day, and pointed out that so far, the Japanese side has always insisted that the trade restriction measures against South Korea have not violated the relevant provisions of the WTO.
In July 2019, Japan announced that it would restrict the export of some semiconductor materials to South Korea. In August of the same year, Japan removed South Korea from its export whitelist. In response, the South Korean side filed a complaint with the WTO on Japan's trade restrictions on September 11, the same year.
Although South Korea suspended the prosecution process in November 2019, the South Korean side decided to restart on June 2, 2020 because the relevant issues have not yet been resolved.