Japan must scrap Korea chip duties by September: WTO

Japan must scrap its duties on South Korean memory chips by September 1 this year, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said on Monday. A reasonable period of time for Japan to implement the rulings of a WTO dispute panel on chips duties is eight months and two weeks from its adoption by the WTO on December 17 last year, WTO arbitrator David Unterhalter said in a report.
South Korea had sought arbitration in March after the two countries failed to agree on a timetable to remove the charges. The WTO's Appellate Body ruled in November last year that Japan must scrap its 27.2 percent countervailing duties on imports of South Korean dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. The case turns on the 2002 bail-out of Hynix Semiconductor, the world's second-largest memory chip maker.