The government has issued an administrative notice of a revision that will remove Japan from a list of preferred trade partner countries. 

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Wednesday that it issued the advance notice of the revision regarding imports and exports of strategic materials, adding it will collect opinions on the revision until September 3. 

The revision will take effect next month after reviews by the Ministry of Government Legislation. 

Currently, South Korea controls exports of strategic items through two categories: category A includes 29 countries which joined all of the four major international export control regimes and category B is comprised of other countries. The government now divided the first category into two groups and Japan is the only country in the new group.  

Under the tightened regulations, South Korean companies seeking to sell strategic goods to Japan will have to hand in significantly more documents for case-by-case government approval. The processing time is expected to take around two weeks, much longer than the current five days.