South Korea's manufacturing hub braces for Japan export controls

CHANGWON, South Korea -- Japan is set to officially remove South Korea from its list of preferred trade partners on Wednesday, the latest salvo in a tit-for-tat spat between the two countries. As Seoul braces for impact, manufacturers more than 300km away in Changwon are quietly fretting about their future.

The Changwon National Industrial Complex, a sprawling cluster of factories specializing in auto parts and machine tools, sits at the southern edge of the Korean peninsula. The industrial park is the country's hub for machine tools, as well as an important center of auto parts making -- and it is heavily reliant on imports from Japan to do business.