Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has pushed for rapprochement with the North since his election last year, calls the Kaesong industrial park a “lifeline” for South Korea.
Asia’s fourth-biggest economy is being squeezed globally between high-end, innovative manufacturers and low-cost producers in China and elsewhere.
Before the 2016 closure of Kaesong, some 120 South Korean companies employed 55,000 North Korean workers there, making everything from clothes and kitchen utensils to electronic components. The North Korean workers were well qualified, hard working and cost just a fraction of what workers in the South were paid, factory owners said.
Almost all small and medium enterprises which used to operate in Kaesong said they would like to go back, according to an April survey.
Seven out of 10 South Korean companies would prefer to use North Korean workers instead of foreign migrants due to language barriers and high costs associated with hiring foreign labor, a separate survey by the Korea Federation of SMEs found.
Hyundai Asan has the most riding on the prospect of a peaceful peninsula.
It paid $1.2 billion to buy exclusive rights for Kaesong and Mount Kumgang, and has interests in railroads and infrastructure projects including reconnecting inter-Korean railways.
Hyundai Asan’s rights to land the size of Manhattan in Kaesong last for 50 years, and it has a plan to build an even bigger factory town if the complex reopens, accommodating 2,000 companies and 350,000 North Korean workers.
Less than 5 percent of the total property in Kaesong has been developed currently, Hyundai told Reuters.
Officials say Hyundai has also agreed with the North to run tours in the coastal city of Wonsan, which North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is trying to build into a hotspot for tourism and foreign investment, as well as Mount Paektu, the famed homeland of both Koreas.
Hyundai’s Baek said the company is also in talks with Seoul and state-run corporations about projects to reconnect railroads between the North and South.
“The government respects Hyundai’s business rights it signed with the North,” said a spokeswoman at South Korea’s Unification Ministry, who did not respond to a question about its discussions with Hyundai.
NO LOVE FROM WASHINGTON
South Korean government officials and business executives say the biggest hurdle is opposition from Washington, which wants to maintain sanctions until Pyongyang completely denuclearizes.
In July, Mark Lambert, director for Korean affairs at the U.S. State Department, called about 10 South Korean businessmen for a meeting at the U.S. embassy in Seoul to deliver a stern message: No resumption of any businesses until denuclearization.
“The mood in the room was bleak,” said SJTech Chairman Yoo Chang-geun, who used to operate a factory at Kaesong and attended the meeting.
Baek, who was also present, unsuccessfully argued Kaesong and Mount Kumgang should be waived from sanctions “to show our goodwill to North Korea.”
A spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department declined to comment on details of “private diplomatic conversations.”
Article source:
After tragic losses, Hyundai aims to reverse N. Korea fortunes
Reuters
2018-10-31
Tags: 2018 sanctions
