SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- 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 said Monday that Japan has 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 company 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 are used as components in computers and other high-tech products.
The arbitrator's decision follows a WTO panel ruling in November that found that Japan incorrectly calculated the tariff, but stopped short of ordering Japan to scrap the fees outright.
After Japan imposed countervailing duties on Hynix products, the company saw its market share in the Japanese DRAM market fall 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, via several debt-to-equity swaps.
