On April 27, the U.S. - Korea Supply Chain and Commercial Dialogue (SSCD) was held in Washington D.C. Gina Raimondo, a U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and Lee Chang-yang, the Minister of Trade of Industry and Energy, made a joint statement to minimize the burdens on firms of tightened export controls of chip industries. The U.S. government made controls last year in October to block China using semiconductor as a military purpose. They announced plans to block the necessary semiconductor equipment to produce 18-nano DRAM, 128-layer NAND, and 14-nano logic chips. 

      This announcement gave a huge damage in Korea chip industries, as the major firms such as Samsung and SK Hynix each produce 40 percent of NAND Flash and DRAM in China. However, through the SSCD, U.S. agreed to minimize uncertainties in Korean corporate investment under the Semiconductor Act, Export Control and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Due to this, Korea is having an expectation that Chinese equipment export control measures will be partially eased, and our firms will recover the impacts on chip industries. 

      Furthermore, they also discussed the prospects for new workstreams on manufacturing and launching a new Digital Economy Working Group during SSCD.