ID :
61570
Thu, 05/21/2009 - 05:16
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://www.oananews.org//node/61570
The shortlink copeid
Amid calls for pullout, Kaesong park tests S. Korean diplomacy
SEOUL, May 20 (Yonhap) -- A senior ruling party lawmaker called for South Korea to pull out from a joint industrial park on North Korean soil Wednesday, further complicating a controversy over how to deal with the peninsula's last surviving symbol of reconciliation.
The comment by Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the Grand National Party is likely to have
a major impact on public opinion. Chung's late father, Hyundai Group founder
Chung Ju-yung, first presented the idea for the venture when inter-Korean
exchanges were beginning to pick up in the late 1990s.
"I'm not demanding it be shut down, but that we pull out our citizens," Chung
said in a party meeting, "That is the least our government can do."
The future of the complex, located in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, is
now in a limbo. Pyongyang has annulled all its contracts regarding the venture,
including those on wages and land fees, criticizing President Lee Myung-bak's
"confrontational" policy towards it. The North told South Korean firms operating
there to accept its new terms or leave.
North Korea also continues to hold a South Korean worker in Kaesong who was
detained in March on charges of criticizing its political system. It has rejected
access to the employee of Hyundai Asan Corp., frustrating Seoul officials.
"At the complex, North Korea can use our citizens as pawns," Chung said. "If the
inter-Korean venture...threatens our citizens' safety, there is no point in it."
Seoul's Unification Ministry has maintained that the government is not
considering a pullout. Kim Ho-nyoun, ministry spokesman, swiftly dismissed
Chung's call as an "individual's opinion."
But the joint park, once hailed as a win-win idea for the North's fragile economy
and the South's small firms, is now a vexing concern to the conservative Lee
government, as it is left with little leverage over North Korea after a year of
enforcing tough policy.
The Kaesong park, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the brainchild of the elder
Chung, who was born in North Korea's Kangwon Province in 1915 and became one of
the wealthiest man in the South. A year after an emotional border trip in which
he drove 500 cattle to the North as a gift to the famine-stricken state, he met
with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 1999 and reached an agreement to develop
the project. Chung set up Hyundai Asan that year to manage inter-Korean ventures.
Construction began in 2003 and the park opened a year later. KT Corp., South
Korea's largest telephone and Internet company, began service at the Kaesong park
in 2005, with electricity supplied by the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp.
The complex has continued to grow, currently hosting 106 South Korean firms who
produce clothes, utensils, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods
and employ more than 40,000 North Korean workers. Kaesong's output reached US$250
million last year.
Kim Young-tak, director general of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Project Bureau
under the Unification Ministry, said there is more than economic value to the
joint venture. Hundreds of South Korean vehicles carrying people, raw materials
and finished goods cross the military demarcation line every day -- a sign of
stability and peace on a divided peninsula that technically remains in a state of
war.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended with a fragile armistice, not a peace treaty.
"I got phone calls when bad things like when the West Sea battle happened. And
people ask me, 'Is the Kaesong park OK?'" Kim said, referring to the bloody
inter-Korean naval skirmish in 2002.
"I say everything is OK, and they feel relieved. The size of the Kaesong park may
not be large, but it has a greater meaning for peace on the Korean Peninsula,"
Kim said in a parliament forum on the joint park on Tuesday.
But businesspeople involved in the complex are feeling the pinch as North Korea
retaliates against the Seoul government. Ok Sung-seok, president of Mine Mode
Co., a Seoul-based clothing firm with a factory in Kaesong, said his buyers
canceled orders for this month after North Korea's traffic control in March and
its latest demand on wage and land fees.
"They told me, what does it matter if good products can't be brought to the
South? They said they can't give me an order until (political) relations have
improved," Ok said at the forum.
"Even if the complex has to be shut down and North Korea orders us out, I'll
remain there. I will, even if they threaten me at gunpoint. My assets are there,"
he said. "We are not Samsung or LG. We are small companies, and our hope and our
goals are all there."
Yoo Chang-geun, vice chairman of the Kaesong Industrial Council that represents
businesses investing in the zone, said their anxiety also comes from the Seoul
government, which has "completely changed its color" from its liberal
predecessors.
According to a survey by Hyundai Research Institute, an affiliate of Hyundai
Group, 75 percent of 623 respondents said the Kaesong park should continue
operations, compared to 21 percent who called for its closure.
South Korea's government and businesses have invested $26.86 million to develop
the joint park, and about $26 million was paid to the North Korean government for
wages last year.
Experts say North Korea's internal issues are also behind its recent belligerence
towards the South, and that Pyongyang is concerned about South Korea's growing
cultural influence trickling through the Kaesong complex.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
The comment by Rep. Chung Mong-joon of the Grand National Party is likely to have
a major impact on public opinion. Chung's late father, Hyundai Group founder
Chung Ju-yung, first presented the idea for the venture when inter-Korean
exchanges were beginning to pick up in the late 1990s.
"I'm not demanding it be shut down, but that we pull out our citizens," Chung
said in a party meeting, "That is the least our government can do."
The future of the complex, located in the North Korean border town of Kaesong, is
now in a limbo. Pyongyang has annulled all its contracts regarding the venture,
including those on wages and land fees, criticizing President Lee Myung-bak's
"confrontational" policy towards it. The North told South Korean firms operating
there to accept its new terms or leave.
North Korea also continues to hold a South Korean worker in Kaesong who was
detained in March on charges of criticizing its political system. It has rejected
access to the employee of Hyundai Asan Corp., frustrating Seoul officials.
"At the complex, North Korea can use our citizens as pawns," Chung said. "If the
inter-Korean venture...threatens our citizens' safety, there is no point in it."
Seoul's Unification Ministry has maintained that the government is not
considering a pullout. Kim Ho-nyoun, ministry spokesman, swiftly dismissed
Chung's call as an "individual's opinion."
But the joint park, once hailed as a win-win idea for the North's fragile economy
and the South's small firms, is now a vexing concern to the conservative Lee
government, as it is left with little leverage over North Korea after a year of
enforcing tough policy.
The Kaesong park, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the brainchild of the elder
Chung, who was born in North Korea's Kangwon Province in 1915 and became one of
the wealthiest man in the South. A year after an emotional border trip in which
he drove 500 cattle to the North as a gift to the famine-stricken state, he met
with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 1999 and reached an agreement to develop
the project. Chung set up Hyundai Asan that year to manage inter-Korean ventures.
Construction began in 2003 and the park opened a year later. KT Corp., South
Korea's largest telephone and Internet company, began service at the Kaesong park
in 2005, with electricity supplied by the state-run Korea Electric Power Corp.
The complex has continued to grow, currently hosting 106 South Korean firms who
produce clothes, utensils, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods
and employ more than 40,000 North Korean workers. Kaesong's output reached US$250
million last year.
Kim Young-tak, director general of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Project Bureau
under the Unification Ministry, said there is more than economic value to the
joint venture. Hundreds of South Korean vehicles carrying people, raw materials
and finished goods cross the military demarcation line every day -- a sign of
stability and peace on a divided peninsula that technically remains in a state of
war.
The 1950-53 Korean War ended with a fragile armistice, not a peace treaty.
"I got phone calls when bad things like when the West Sea battle happened. And
people ask me, 'Is the Kaesong park OK?'" Kim said, referring to the bloody
inter-Korean naval skirmish in 2002.
"I say everything is OK, and they feel relieved. The size of the Kaesong park may
not be large, but it has a greater meaning for peace on the Korean Peninsula,"
Kim said in a parliament forum on the joint park on Tuesday.
But businesspeople involved in the complex are feeling the pinch as North Korea
retaliates against the Seoul government. Ok Sung-seok, president of Mine Mode
Co., a Seoul-based clothing firm with a factory in Kaesong, said his buyers
canceled orders for this month after North Korea's traffic control in March and
its latest demand on wage and land fees.
"They told me, what does it matter if good products can't be brought to the
South? They said they can't give me an order until (political) relations have
improved," Ok said at the forum.
"Even if the complex has to be shut down and North Korea orders us out, I'll
remain there. I will, even if they threaten me at gunpoint. My assets are there,"
he said. "We are not Samsung or LG. We are small companies, and our hope and our
goals are all there."
Yoo Chang-geun, vice chairman of the Kaesong Industrial Council that represents
businesses investing in the zone, said their anxiety also comes from the Seoul
government, which has "completely changed its color" from its liberal
predecessors.
According to a survey by Hyundai Research Institute, an affiliate of Hyundai
Group, 75 percent of 623 respondents said the Kaesong park should continue
operations, compared to 21 percent who called for its closure.
South Korea's government and businesses have invested $26.86 million to develop
the joint park, and about $26 million was paid to the North Korean government for
wages last year.
Experts say North Korea's internal issues are also behind its recent belligerence
towards the South, and that Pyongyang is concerned about South Korea's growing
cultural influence trickling through the Kaesong complex.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
