Hyundai Asan plans to add Pyongyang to tours of N. Korea’s highest peak

Yonhap
11/19/2007

A South Korean company operating businesses in North Korea said Monday it plans to add the North’s capital to the itinerary for future tours of the North’s highest peak, located on the border with China.

Hyundai Asan, the North Korean business arm of Hyundai Group, is preparing to launch tours of Mount Paekdu in May next year, after the leaders of the two Koreas agreed to establish direct flights from Seoul to the mountain at the second-ever inter-Korean summit early last month.

“We already asked South and North Korean authorities to include Pyongyang in the tour route to Mt. Paekdu,” said Yoon Man-joon, chief executive officer of Hyundai Asan.

Yoon said he was “optimistic” about adding the North Korean capital to the route because the North shared a “similar view as a business partner.”

Yoon made the remark during a press conference at North Korea’s Mt. Geumgang, where the company operates the only South Korean tourism business in the North, to mark the ninth anniversary of the start of the tourism project.

Although Yoon gave no exact timetable for the Pyongyang tours for ordinary South Koreans, company officials hinted they will probably be available in early 2009.

The Mt. Geumgang tourism program, which started in 1998, is the only one that gives foreign tourists an opportunity to easily see parts of North Korea.

Hyundai Asan is believed to pay hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars to North Korea in fees for the program, which has drawn more than 1.5 million tourists.

At the inter-Korean summit last month, President Roh Moo-hyun and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il agreed that their countries would work together on a wide range of economic projects, even though the two states are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice.

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