S. Korea reviewing N. Korea's call to revise industrial contracts: minister

SEOUL, April 22 (Yonhap) -- South Korea will carefully review North Korea's
demand to raise land use fees and revise contracts at a joint industrial complex
on its soil, Seoul's unification minister said Wednesday.
The two Koreas met Tuesday for their first government-level talks in more than a
year, during which the North demanded negotiations begin on operational changes
at the joint complex in its border town of Kaesong. Pyongyang said it will
reconsider all "special benefits" that have been granted to South Korean firms,
such as low wages for North Korean employees and free land use.
The proposed measure, if actualized, is expected to deal a serious blow to more
than 100 South Korean firms in Kaesong, mostly small manufacturers producing
garments, utensils, watches and other labor-intensive products and already
struggling to survive the global economic downturn.
"Our government will carefully review (North Korean demands) after collecting
ideas from Hyundai Asan and firms operating in Kaesong," Unification Minister
Hyun In-taek said in a briefing to the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs, Trade
and Unification Committee. Hyundai Asan Corp., a South Korean firm, developed the
joint park under a contract with North Korea.
The Kaesong venture, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the last remaining
inter-Korean reconciliatory project, launched by the Kim Dae-jung administration
and opened by his successor Roh Moo-hyun.
Under a contract signed between Hyundai and the North Korean government in 2000,
South Korean firms pay their North Korean employees between US$70-$80 on average
a month, but the wages are wired directly to North Korean government bank
accounts. The annual wages last year amounted to $26 million, according to
ministry data. About 39,000 cheap but skilled North Korean workers are employed
there.
North Korea also said it will begin charging land fees starting next year. North
Korea initially set a 10-year grace period on rent when the complex opened,
allowing the South Korean firms to use its land in Kaesong for free until 2014.
The minister criticized North Korea's prolonged detention of a South Korean
worker as "against justice." Pyongyang officials did not answer questions about
the Hyundai Asan employee during Tuesday's talks, he said.
The worker, in his 40s and identified only by his surname Yu, was detained on
March 30 for allegedly criticizing the North's political system and trying to
tempt a local female worker to defect.
"There was no clear answer from the North," Hyun said in response to a lawmaker's
questions over whether the worker is safe.
The inter-Korean talks opened after a half-day delay due to procedural disputes
but lasted only 22 minutes, during which the two sides exchanged documents laying
out their demands and positions.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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