SEOUL (Reuters) -South Korea and the United States will meet for their first working group discussions on visa systems for Korean companies operating in the U.S. on Tuesday, Seoul's foreign ministry said.
The talks are designed to improve U.S. visa programmes for South Korean businesses there in the aftermath of a massive raid that led to the arrests of hundreds of South Korean workers at a Hyundai Motor car battery facility under construction in Georgia earlier this month.
Wi Sung-lac, South Korea's top national security adviser, said on Monday the country would resolve the visa issues as quickly as possible to create a better environment for Korean investments in the United States.
South Korean companies have become major investors in the U.S., building factories that often require highly technical skill sets that are not easy to find in the United States.
But unlike some countries such as Australia, Canada and Mexico, South Koreans do not have access to special treaty work visas.
Instead, workers from South Korean companies have used visa waiver programmes or temporary visas for some business-related activities.
"We will focus on making current (visa) systems more clear and seek to design a new category in addition to that," though it is hard to know when this will be completed," Wi told a media briefing on Monday.
"We will try to achieve an outcome as quickly as possible," he said.
Wi reiterated that South Korea was unable to pay $350 billion in cash for an investment package that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested as part of a deal to cut tariffs.
Washington had agreed to lower tariffs on imports from South Korea in return for the investment package, but follow-up negotiations to hammer out details, including the structure of the investment package, have stalled.
Visa issues for Korean workers are not necessarily connected to the ongoing tariff negotiations, but resolving those issues would help the country's businesses in the U.S., Wi said.
(Reporting by Ju-min Park and Heejin Kim; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Jamie Freed)
