WASHINGTON: The Biden administration plans to place Chinese chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and 35 other Chinese firms on a trade blacklist that would prevent them from buying certain American components, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

The US Department of Commerce will add the Chinese companies to a so-called Entity List as early as this week, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

Once a company is added to the entity list, its US suppliers must seek a special licence to ship even low-tech items to it.

YMTC declined to comment, and the US Department of Commerce did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment outside business hours.

Dozens of other Chinese entities, including YMTC, were “at risk” of being added to a trade blacklist as soon as Dec 6, a US Commerce Department official said in prepared remarks seen by Reuters last month.

In October, 31 entities, including YMTC, were added to a list of companies that US officials have been unable to inspect, ratcheting up tensions with Beijing.

Published in Dawn, December 15th, 2022