Jointly Run Factory Park in North Korea Resumes Production
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Version 0 of 1. SEOUL, South Korea — In the latest sign of a thaw on the divided Korean Peninsula, hundreds of cars and trucks streamed across the border on Monday to take South Korean managers and raw materials back to a jointly operated industrial park in North Korea, where factories resumed production after a 166-day hiatus. Operations at the factory complex in the North Korean town of Kaesong came to a halt in early April, when the North withdrew all 53,000 of its workers, blaming tensions with the United States and South Korea. The two Koreas reached an agreement in mid-August to reopen the complex, following weeks of negotiations. Technicians from the South have since made day trips across the border to work on the long-idled plants. Separately, South Korean officials have been negotiating with their North Korean counterparts over changes that they hope will make the joint project less vulnerable to political tensions in the future, such as attracting non-Korean investment. More than 800 South Korean factory managers and truck drivers entered Kaesong on Monday, as about half of the 123 South Korean-owned factories there began test runs or resumed production, with North Korean employees back at work. Officials from a South Korean lobby group representing the interests of Kaesong factory owners handed out roses to managers at the border crossing to celebrate the occasion. Many of the South Koreans will stay at the site to manage the plants, as they had until South Korea withdrew all of its personnel between late April and early May. Since beginning operations in late 2004 as a test case for Korean reunification, the Kaesong complex has slowly grown in size, pairing South Korean manufacturing know-how with inexpensive North Korean labor. Last year, it produced $470 million worth of textiles, shoes, electronics parts and other goods. North Korea has agreed to exempt the South Korean-owned factories in Kaesong from taxation this year to help them make up for the millions of dollars lost because of the five-month halt in production. It also agreed to allow more frequent border crossings for South Koreans working at the plants. The North previously opened the border only four times a day for those traveling to and from Kaesong. The resumption of production at Kaesong was the most visible sign of easing tensions between the rival Koreas since they traded threats of war last spring, following the North’s latest nuclear test in February. Also on Monday, the two governments exchanged lists of names of people who will be allowed to meet with long-lost relatives from across the border, another inter-Korean program that is being resumed. The elderly Koreans, 96 from the South and 100 from the North, will participate in family reunions scheduled to begin on Sept. 25; they are among tens of thousands who have been on a waiting list to be reunited with relatives last seen during the Korean War of 1950-53. |