Yonhap
11/7/2007
Bilateral trade between the two Koreas increased by 23 percent in the first 10 months of the year due mainly to an increase in shipments of goods produced at the South Korea-built industrial complex in the communist North, the Unification Ministry said Wednesday.
The two-way trade volume jumped to nearly US$1.44 billion in the January-October period, up from $1.16 billion from a year earlier, according to the ministry.
“The rise mainly comes from a 48 percent increase in the amount of goods shipped from Kaesong,” a ministry official said, adding trade in some other areas, such as minerals and fisheries, increased by nearly 50 percent year-on-year.
Exchanges in non-commercial areas, however, dropped by 18 percent, according to the ministry official.
Seoul hopes cross-border trade will continue to increase over the coming years as the sides are about to launch a second development plan to expand the Kaesong industrial complex, where about two dozen South Korean companies are currently employing some 10,000 North Korean workers.
The joint industrial complex is expected to house over 2,000 South Koreans businesses and employ as many as 500,000 North Koreans when it is fully developed by a target year of 2012.
President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il have also agreed to develop the North’s western Haeju area as a special economic district in the second-ever inter-Korean summit held in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang early last month.
