By Oh Seok-min
SEOUL, Sept. 21 (Yonhap) — The United States has committed to helping South Korean chipmakers keep their operations running in China or any other place, a senior U.S. official said Thursday, about a month before the expiration of the one-year waiver from equipment export restrictions on China.
In October last year, the U.S. declared a set of rules that limit the export of certain advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment and items to companies in China to slow Beijing’s technological progress. Nevertheless, Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc. were granted a one-year exemption due to worries that the move would disturb their businesses in China, as the South Korean chip giants depend on U.S. equipment for part of their production there.
U.S. Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves told Yonhap News Agency in Seoul that the U.S. “understands the worries that companies have and will do whatever it can to make sure that companies can keep conducting their business.”
He visited South Korea on Thursday for a two-day stay to discuss ways to enhance bilateral cooperation on advanced industries and other pending matters of mutual concern. Graves declined to comment on individual cases but highlighted that Washington is giving them “the opportunity to explain why they should receive a waiver” as it wants “to make sure that what we’re doing is allowing legitimate business to go on” and does not want to “constrain” them “unnecessarily.”
“We want to have strong national security but also allow our businesses to be able to continue to do their work and to succeed, because … if they’re able to invest successfully, grow research and development, then they’ll be able to have long term success and we’ll be able to keep that technological advantage together as partners,” Graves said.
Earlier, South Korea’s industry ministry expressed expectations for the extension of the waiver as the two nations have been in talks regarding the issue.
Samsung operates a chip manufacturing plant in the Chinese city of Xian, which accounts for some 40 percent of its global NAND flash production. In Suzhou, the chipmaker runs a semiconductor packaging factory. SK hynix currently operates multiple plants in China, including one in the eastern city of Wuxi, where it manufactures about half of its global DRAM chips.
graceoh@yna.co.kr
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