South Korea's Hynix hopeful after WTO ruling on Japan tariff
SEOUL, South Korea—Hynix Semiconductor Inc. of South Korea said Wednesday it expects to sell more dynamic random access memory chips in Japan after a World Trade Organization ruling.
An arbitrator for the WTO on Monday gave Japan until Sept. 1 to amend the import charges it imposes on DRAM chips made by Hynix.
"With the WTO decision, we expect our exports to Japan to return to the levels seen before the Japanese authorities imposed punitive duties on our products," said Hynix spokesman Seong Ae Park.
In 2006, the South Korean government filed a complaint against Japan with the WTO over the 27.2 percent charge Japanese tax authorities imposed on imports of Hynix DRAM chips, which provide temporary memory for computers and other products when they're in use.
The arbitrator's decision follows a WTO panel ruling in November that Japan incorrectly calculated the tariff. At that point, the WTO stopped short of ordering Japan to scrap the fees outright.
Hynix's market share in the Japanese DRAM market fell to around 13 percent in 2006 from about 16 percent earlier.
Hynix, the world's second-largest DRAM maker after Samsung Electronics Co., will try to get a refund for duties it has already paid to the Japanese tax authorities, Park said. She didn't elaborate.
Hynix, which nearly collapsed under the weight of its debt in 2001 after chip prices plunged, has been bailed out by creditors, including state-owned banks, through several swaps of debt for equity.
