The offer followed a preliminary ruling by the US Department of Commerce last week that dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips from South Korea were unfairly subsidised by the government.

The ruling called for countervailing duties of 57.37 percent on chips shipped by South Korea's ailing Hynix Semiconductor Inc.

"The government will offer to cut Hynix US shipments under the (tariff) suspension agreement," the Commerce, Industry and Energy Ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the US Department of Commerce would have until April 15 to respond to the offer.

"This government proposal does not mean that we accept the US preliminary ruling. The offer does not affect the future probes before the final ruling comes out," it added.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co, the world's largest memory chipmaker which faces a 0.16 percent tariff in the US preliminary ruling, was excluded from the proposal.

South Korea denies the US claim that the government has subsidized ailing Hynix through bailout packages, and has threatened to take the United States to the World Trade Organization.

The US accusation focuses on South Korean state-controlled creditor banks' rescue packages to help Hynix stay afloat.

Hynix exported 460 million dollars of DRAM chips to the United States last year, 24 percent of South Korea's total 1.94 billion dollars worth of US-bound memory chip shipments, according to government statistics.

The US probes of Hynix Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics began in November following a petition by US firm Micron Technology to determine if the South Korean government had subsidised local DRAM makers.

Micron denounced a series of bailout packages extended by South Korean creditor banks to debt-ridden Hynix as illegal subsidies because some of the local banks involved were state-controlled.

But South Korean officials have said the government did not take part in any bailout programmes for Hynix and said the decision was made solely by the creditors.

The US preliminary ruling requires Hynix to deposit 25 million dollars every month in temporary duties for its US shipments of DRAM chips, pending a final ruling in July.

Hynix faces similar punitive action in Europe, where the European Commission called for import duties of 30-35 percent on Hynix's shipments to the European Union and a preliminary ruling is due late this month.

South Korea's global DRAM exports totaled 5.9 billion dollars last year.

SPACE.WIRE