The United States Trade Representative(USTR) is expected to raise concerns related to information protection in electronic commerce and market regulations in the legal services sector to South Korea this year.

In its 2016 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers, the USTR took issue with privacy protection rules in South Korea’s e-commerce.

The report said that electronic commerce firms selling goods in Korean won have been prohibited from storing Korean customers’ credit card numbers in company information systems. It said that as a result, U.S. electronic commerce firms that are unwilling to develop Korea-specific payment systems have been prevented from entering the Korean market. The USTR called the restrictions “unreasonable and unnecessary.”

The report also said that as South Korea is in the process of opening its legal services market, the U.S. will continue to urge Seoul to review its overall approach to the market opening.

On intellectual property rights, the report said that generally, Korea has a strong IPR protection and enforcement regime.