Poultry company looks North for land, workers
Joong Ang Daily
11/7/2007
A South Korean food company said yesterday it will start building a chicken farm in North Korea later this year as part of its efforts to produce chickens using the North’s cheap labor.
Maniker Company, the nation’s second-largest chicken processing company, said it agreed with North Korean officials last month to establish the farm in Kaesong, where an inter-Korean industrial complex is located.
“Construction will start later this year and the farm will be operational early next year,” said Choi Young-sam, a spokesman for Maniker, by telephone.
North Korea will provide the site and workers for the construction, Choi said, adding the project is partly supported by the South Korean government.
The agreement was reached at a meeting in Pyongyang when two executives of Maniker visited the North in late October, the spokesman said.
Details such as how much money Maniker and the South Korean government will spend on the chicken farm have yet to be fixed, Choi said.
In the Kaesong Industrial Complex, located 70 kilometers north of Seoul, 26 South Korean companies employ about 16,000 North Korean workers who produce garments, kitchenware and a number of other goods.
North, South Korea collaborate on strategy to end food shortage
Courier News (Via DPRK Forum)
11/6/2007
North Korea and South Korea have decided to start a jointly operated hog farm in the North’s capital to help alleviate the communist nation’s chronic food shortages, a South Korean official said Tuesday.
The agreement came as a follow-up to a wide range of accords reached by the leaders of the two Koreas last month.
The farm will run for a two-year trial period in Pyongyang and aim to breed 5,000 hogs, with the South providing the animals, feed, equipment and building materials, and the North providing the land, electricity, water and labor, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said.
Officials of the two countries negotiated the deal in talks in the North Korean border city of Kaesong on Monday and plan to meet again to map out details, such as when to open the farm, ministry spokesman Park Won-jae said in Seoul.
“The hogs are aimed at resolving the North’s food shortage problem,” Park said, adding that the animals would not be exported to South Korea or elsewhere.
North Korea suffers from chronic food shortages and has struggled to increase its grain production in recent years. The country was hit by famine in the mid-1990s that killed an estimated 2 million people.
In the second-ever inter-Korean summit in Pyongyang in early October, South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il agreed on accords aimed at easing tensions and boosting cross-border economic exchange programs. The measures included the launch of cooperative farm programs.
The two Koreas are still technically at war, as their 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.
