Early outcomes and next steps on the US-Korea commercial forum

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo and the Republic of Korea’s Minister for Trade, Industry, and Energy Moon Sung Wook met yesterday in Washington, D.C. Following up on the May 9 roundtable held with President Moon Jae-In, Minister Moon Sung Wook, and U.S. and Korean business leaders, they discussed next steps on implementing the U.S.-Korea Commercial Forum, which will include holding events with a wide range of stakeholders in a variety of sectors that are strategically important between the United States and Korea.

Secretary Raimondo issued the following statement:

“Today, we reaffirm our commitment to collaborate through the U.S. – Korea Commercial Forum. We celebrate our early progress, and look forward to holding discussions on semiconductor supply chains with U.S. and Korean firms in the future as the first step in this engagement.

“Our teams also agreed to share information on reducing the risk of supply and demand imbalance of chips capacity, including technology and investment priorities, and work together to coordinate our efforts to resolve the current supply chain crisis and position the supply chain to minimize future bottlenecks.

“We are finalizing a work plan that builds on extensive engagement with stakeholders in several industries. Forum activities also will address shared policy priorities, such as standards and supply chain resilience. In addition, periodic Forum meetings will convene government and industry leaders to inform our approach and drive commercially meaningful outcomes.

“We are working to explore opportunities for joint Forum programming in 2022 at relevant events, such as the SelectUSA Investment Summit.

“We look forward to reporting additional activities and initiatives as the Forum continues to develop.”