South Korea’s Ministry of Industry, Trade and Resources officials said on the 29th that it was informed by the industry that individual applications for Japanese companies to export high-purity hydrogen fluoride to South Korea were approved by the Japanese government. This is the first time that Japan has approved the export of high-purity hydrogen fluoride from its own companies to South Korea since it began export control measures at the beginning of last month.

In addition to high-purity hydrogen fluoride, Japan has approved the export of photoresist to South Korea twice this month. Of the three items subject to export control in Japan, only fluorine polyimide has not been approved. According to the July trade statistics released by the Ministry of Finance of Japan, the export volume of high-purity hydrogen fluoride to South Korea was 479 tons, a sharp decrease of 83.7% from the previous month.