For the 12th Consecutive Year
The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has excluded South Korea for the 12th consecutive year from its monitoring list related to intellectual property rights.
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on April 30 that the USTR released its 2020 Special 301 Report on April 29 (local time) and South Korea is not on the list in that report. Back in 2009, South Korea was excluded for the first time from the list in the annual report in which the level of intellectual property rights protection is assessed by country and those providing less protection are listed.
In that report, they are divided into priority foreign countries, priority watch countries and watch countries and priority foreign countries can be subject to retaliatory trade measures. This year, the priority watch list consists of 10 countries, including China and Indonesia, and the watch list consists of the 23 countries including Thailand and Vietnam.