WASHINGTON -- South Korea and the United States will launch new bilateral talks next month on enhancing their cooperation on the semiconductor supply chain, Industry Minister Moon Sung-wook said Wednesday.

The inaugural meeting will be held Dec. 8, involving director-level officials from the two countries, as well as officials and representatives from businesses and other related organizations.

Moon said he and his US counterpart, Gina Raimondo, have also agreed to consider upgrading the countries' director-level commercial forum to a ministerial level.

"With regard to semiconductors, (the sides) agreed to create a new semiconductor partnership dialogue and hold its first meeting on Dec. 8," Moon said while meeting with reporters here, adding the meeting will likely be held virtually.

The South Korean minister arrived here Tuesday for his meeting with Raimondo the same day. Moon also met with US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm on Wednesday.

The US commerce department earlier said Moon and Raimondo agreed to expand the countries' commercial forum to help enhance their supply chain resiliency, and also tackle other bilateral and regional issues, such as setting global standards for key industrial sectors.

"Today, we reaffirm our commitment to collaborate through the US-Korea Commercial Forum. We celebrate our early progress and look forward to holding discussions on semiconductor supply chains with US and Korean firms in the future as the first step in this engagement," Raimondo said Tuesday after her meeting with Moon, according to a press release from her department.

"Our teams also agreed to share information on reducing the risk of supply and demand imbalance of chips capacity, including technology and investment priorities, and work together to coordinate our efforts to resolve the current supply chain crisis and position the supply chain to minimize future bottlenecks," she was quoted as saying.

The countries are now considering upgrading the commercial forum to a ministerial level, according to Moon.

"There was an agreement yesterday to expand and upgrade the South Korea-US Commercial Forum in the future to help further solidify commercial cooperation between the two countries," he told reporters.

The Moon-Raimondo meeting came one day after some 200 global chipmakers and other businesses, including South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. and SK hynix Inc., were asked to submit information on their business to the US to resolve the ongoing semiconductor shortage.

Raimondo said the US and South Korea will continue to work through their joint commerce forum to tackle supply chain issues and others.

"We are finalizing a work plan that builds on extensive engagement with stakeholders in several industries. Forum activities also will address shared policy priorities, such as standards and supply chain resilience," she said.

"In addition, periodic Forum meetings will convene government and industry leaders to inform our approach and drive commercially meaningful outcomes." (Yonhap)