American corporations operating in South Korea have voiced the need to ease regulations that act as non-tariff trade barriers. It is analyzed that an environment should be created in future U.S. mutual tariff negotiations that enables global corporations to compete fairly.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Korea noted on the 8th through the '2025 Domestic Business Environment Insight Report: APEC Special Edition' that the report analyzes the regulatory environment faced by American corporations entering the domestic market and includes policy tasks for creating a transparent and predictable business environment.
The report mentioned over 70 regulations across 12 industries, including aerospace and defense, automotive, pharmaceuticals, digital economy, energy and environment, financial services, and medical devices, based on a survey of 800 corporations (members) active in South Korea. Many of these issues remain unresolved, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea pointed out that they have emerged since last year.
In the automotive industry, it has been held that technical measures imposed in the name of environmental or safety concerns create an uneven playing field for American corporations entering Korea. It was also argued that redundant electric vehicle regulations by ministry should be improved and that the North American Charging Standard (NACS) should be adopted as the official charging standard.
In the aerospace and defense industry, there were requests for the Defense Acquisition Program Administration to establish clear guidelines and criteria regarding industrial cooperation plans and to relax excessive penalty provisions in offset contract conditions and obligations. In the energy and environment sector, restrictive investment requirements for foreign corporations were also cited as grievances.
In the survey, 40.6% of responding corporations indicated that the domestic management environment is 'below the global average.' This represents nearly a twofold increase compared to 22.5% from last year’s survey. The percentage of those who answered that the management environment is 'poor' increased from 2.8% to 4.7% during the same period.
The most significant difficulty in the domestic management environment was cited as 'an unpredictable regulatory environment,' with 32.8% of corporations selecting this option. Following this were 'political uncertainty' (25.0%) due to the state of emergency declared in December last year, 'economic slowdown' (23.4%), and 'labor policy' (9.4%).
James Kim, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea, said, 'The recent mutual tariff announcement has made the trade environment between the two countries somewhat complex, but the trust in the robustness and resilience of the Korea-U.S. economic partnership remains unchanged.' He added, 'For over 70 years, the two countries have built an economic cooperation relationship and will continue to achieve long-term mutual prosperity through ongoing communication and cooperation.'