Provincial councils suspend passage of bills on purchase restrictions for Japanese products

Councilors of the Chungcheongbuk-do Provincial Council participate in a plenary session, Wednesday. Courtesy of Chungcheongbuk-do Provincial Council

By Park Ji-won

Korea's provincial councils have continued to put a hold on passing bills restricting the purchase of products from “Japanese war crime firms” amid efforts to seek ways to improve deadlocked relations between Seoul and Tokyo.

The Chungcheongbuk-do Provincial Council decided this month not to pass the measure on banning public organizations from buying from the Japanese firms connected with the use of wartime slave labor.

The ordinance urges the public offices including the government of North Chungcheong Province, the offices for the provincial council and the office of education not to buy products from those Japanese firms.

The move came amid behind-the-scenes moves by the Korean and Japanese governments looking for a breakthrough in the frozen economic and diplomatic relations between the two. The Korean government filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) last month after Japan tightened trade controls on three high-tech materials heading to South Korea, in response to the South Korean Supreme Court's decision ordering Japanese firms to compensate surviving South Korean victims of forced labor.

Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon plans to visit Tokyo next week to participate in the coronation of Japan's emperor and meet Japanese officials. Seoul has been asking Tokyo to lift its export curbs as a prerequisite to extending the General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) before next month's deadline for renewing the bilateral intel-sharing pact.

On a related note, many provincial councils, which have been planning since August to pass such purchase restriction bills, are taking a wait-and-see approach until things settle after Lee's move.

“The council decided to wait and see as there are concerns that the implementation of the ordinance may violate WTO regulations,“ Lee Sang-sik, spokesman of Chungcheongbuk-do Provincial Council, was quoted as saying.

Earlier this week, the Gyeonggido Assembly and the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), also decided not to handle a similar bill on restricting public organizations in the region from doing business with those Japanese firms.

The measure was made to urge people not to use Japanese products by voluntarily putting warning stickers on the Japanese products or holding discussions and campaigns to let people know about Japanese firms' activities during wartime.