S. Korea raises concerns at WTO over EU battery, packaging regulations

South Korea has formally raised objections at the World Trade Organization against foreign technical regulations it says are hampering the country's exporters.

The Korean Agency for Technology and Standards under the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, along with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, said Friday they participated in the third session of the WTO Technical Barriers to Trade Committee, where they conducted multilateral and bilateral negotiations.

At the meeting, South Korea filed specific trade concerns over several EU measures, including the delegated regulation on recycled content calculation under the EU Battery Regulation, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, the Single-Use Plastics Directive and the Ecodesign Regulation.

A specific trade concern is a formal objection that a WTO member may raise before the TBT Committee against another member's technical regulation.

South Korea also filed a specific trade concern over China's regulations on the supervision and administration of medical devices. It also voiced support for concerns raised by domestic industry regarding Indonesia's national certification requirements for audio and video products.

Through bilateral consultations, the government conveyed industry concerns about technical regulations that could burden South Korean exporters — including India's proposed amendments to its extended producer responsibility rules for automobiles — and discussed ways to address them.

"Countries around the world are increasingly using technical regulations to protect and promote their own industries, creating new burdens for our exporters," said Kim Gyu-seong, head of the Korean Agency for Technology and Standards. "The government will continue to work actively to resolve the difficulties our export companies face due to foreign technical regulations."