North Korean Economy Watch

According to Arirang News:

China has temporarily issued a ban on tours to North Korea’s Mount Geumgang resort.

A source in Beijing says the government has ordered local travel agencies to tentatively hold off on selling tour packages to Mount Geumgang and most agencies have responded by taking down such offers from their websites.

Observers say the latest move could be in line with Seoul’s request to Beijing in May to refrain from holding tours to certain areas of Mount Geumgang as North Korea has violated the terms of the contract by seizing South Korean assets at the resort.

While tours to the North Korean resort have been suspended since April following the sinking of the Cheonan China has been operating tours to Mount Geumgang since March.

Read full story here:
China Bans Tours to N. Korea’s Mount Geumgang Resort
Arirang News
7/23/2010

According to the Economic Times of India:

Creditors stopped providing new loans Thursday to South Korea’s troubled Hyundai Group, which runs a shipping line and major business projects in North Korea, officials said.

Nine of the group’s 12 units will receive no fresh loans “until the group accepts our demands”, said a spokesman for Korea Exchange Bank, the largest of 13 creditors.

The decision does not affect Hyundai’s better-known operations such as automaking and shipbuilding, which were hived off from the original group into financially separate businesses after the 1997-98 financial crisis.

The Hyundai Group includes the country’s biggest bulk carrier Hyundai Merchant Marine and Hyundai Asan, which operates the troubled projects in the North.

The group was picked by creditors in May as a financially distressed conglomerate. But it has refused to sign a deal to sell non-core assets to reduce debts, insisting its financial health is improving.

Debt piled up last year as Hyundai Merchant Marine suffered heavy losses due to the global business slump. However the shipping line posted 154 billion won (126 million dollars) in operating profit in the second quarter of this year.

“Creditors have ignored our position that such a deal will weaken our competitiveness at a time when the group is improving its financial structure,” a group spokeswoman said, without giving total debt figures.

Hyundai, once South Korea’s largest business empire, has been dowgraded to a second-tier conglomerate since its automaking and shipbuilding arms were hived off in 2000 and 2002.

Hyundai Asan’s projects in North Korea, including the Mount Kumgang tourist resort, have been in trouble since a conservative government took office in Seoul in early 2008.

The Kumgang tours were suspended in July 2008 after North Korean soldiers shot dead a Seoul housewife who strayed into a military zone, causing losses to the South Korean company of tens of millions of dollars.

A day trip from the South to the North’s historic city of Kaesong was later also suspended.

Hyundai Asan also operates a jointly-run industrial estate in the North whose operations have sometimes been hit by political tensions.

Read the full story here:
S Korean banks end new loans to Hyundai Group
Economic Times
7/8/2010

According to Yonhap:

Seoul has requested that Beijing exclude North Korea’s Mount Kumgang resort from its list of group tour destinations allowed for its people while it seeks understanding on a dispute over the North’s recent illegal freeze of South Korean assets there, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism here said Tuesday.

Late last month, the North froze most South Korean assets at the resort on the east coast, including five South Korean government-run facilities, citing Seoul’s refusal to resume cross-border tours.

The tours, once a cash cow for the poverty-ridden communist country, were suspended in 2008, when a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean soldier guarding a restricted area. Seoul has demanded a full investigation into the case and safety guarantees for South Korean tourists. The demands have yet to be met.

On May 11, South Korean Culture Minister Yoo In-chon sent China’s national travel agency a letter saying that the North’s asset freeze is a violation of an inter-Korean contract, and asked China’s help in making the North withdraw the unlawful step, the ministry said.

Read the full story here:
S. Korea asks China to ban Mount Kumgang tours
Yonhap
5/18/2010

According to the Donga Ilbo:

The Unification Ministry said Monday that it has asked ministries to suspend aid to North Korea requiring government budget.

The ministry had issued recommendations to delay the signing of new contracts and the shipment of materials to the North to companies involved in inter-Korean cooperation.

Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said, “We sent official letters to 10 related ministries, including the Strategy and Finance Ministry, the Health and Welfare Ministry, and the Korea Forestry Service Friday asking for the temporary suspension of assistance projects for North Korea run by those ministries.”

“This measure has been taken in light of the North’s seizure of South Korean real estate in the Mount Kumgang area and the grave nature of inter-Korean relations of late.”

Seoul has also begun efforts to survey inter-Korean projects conducted by the 10 ministries. Last year, the ministries ran a budget of six billion won (5.2 million U.S. dollars) to assist the North.

The Unification Ministry also contacted companies involved in inter-Korean cooperation, excluding those operating at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, to refrain from making new contracts, investment and visits Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

With analysts saying Seoul has taken a series of measures in the wake of the Cheonan sinking, a Unification Ministry source said, “Since the situation in inter-Korean relations has gotten grave and highly treacherous, we informed related ministries as a preemptive measure to reduce risks.”

Unification Minister Hyun In-taek also told reporters Monday, “We can hardly say that we’ve taken any practical countermeasures.”

Read the full story here:
Ministries Asked to Suspend Aid to N. Korea
Donga Ilbo
5/18/2010

According to the Korea Herald:

Twenty-four South Koreans — 18 employees of Hyundai Asan Corp. and six of its partner firms such as Emerson Pacific — returned home yesterday following 36 Chinese employees who left the resort on Sunday.

This leaves only 16 people to look after the resort — 12 Hyundai Asan employees and four of Emerson Pacific’s golf course.

North Korea last week told all but 16 employees of the South Korean companies operating in the Mount Geumgang resort to leave after announcing that it “seized” or “froze” South Korean real estate assets within the tourist zone.

The Seoul government has repeatedly said that it will take firm countermeasures against the North’s “illegal and unjust actions that are fundamentally detrimental to inter-Korean relations” in consideration of various circumstances.

…

The Seoul government is reportedly weighing several options including cutting inter-Korean trade or tightening control over goods entering the North.

North Korea last week attached “confiscation” stickers on facilities owned by the South Korean government and the state-funded Korea Tourism Organization such as the spa center and a building for reunions of families separated by the border.

They also “froze” tourism assets owned by private companies such as Hyundai Asan, sticking notes on the doors and keyholes of hotels, duty free shops and restaurants that have been dormant for nearly two years.

The Seoul government suspended tours to the Mount Geumgang resort after a South Korean tourist was shot dead there in July 2008.

Read the full article here:
S. Korean workers leave N.K. resort
Korea Herald
Kim So-hyun
5/3/2010

According to the Donga Ilbo:

North Korea seeks to directly handle tours to the Mount Kumgang area after forcing South Korea out of the venture, said a source on North Korean affairs yesterday.

Korea Taepung International Investment Group, an agency under the North’s powerful National Defense Commission, has reportedly recruited Chinese companies to help operate the tour since January this year.

The source said, “Negotiations have significantly progressed in certain aspects,” adding, “I understand the North Korean leadership is considering directly operating the Mount Kumgang tour by getting Taepung or an agency under the National Defense Commission to hire multiple Chinese companies as agencies after forcing the Hyundai Group out of Mount Kumgang and Kaesong.”

Another informed source said, “Since Taepung is an agency that holds overall authority over attracting investment for the North’s national development, the group is believed to be advising and supervising efforts to resume the Mount Kumgang tour as well.”

On this, a South Korean government source said, “Even if the North severs ties with Hyundai Asan Corp., complicated legal action will continue over the North’s violation of the contract,” adding, “No Chinese company will seek to serve as a comprehensive business operator, so the new plan appears to be the most practical alternative for North Korea.”

If Taepung or an agency under the defense commission starts to operate the tour directly, the tour program will likely be operated under a completely different system.

The tour’s South Korean operator, Hyundai Asan, has wielded comprehensive and monopolistic rights to the venture, but North Korea appears to have taken over as the operator, with multiple foreign companies taking part.

An agency under the North’s defense commission or military will likely step forward to operate the tour in lieu of Pyongyang’s Asia-Pacific Peace Committee under the ruling Workers’ Party or the Landmark General Development Bureau under the North Korean Cabinet.

And according to Yonhap:

Dozens of South Korean business officials will visit North Korea this week to comply with Pyongyang’s demand that they be present when the communist state freezes their assets at a joint mountain resort, officials said Monday, amid fears of further confiscation.

North Korea already confiscated five South Korean government-run facilities, including a family reunion center and a fire station, at its Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast last week.

The move reflected Pyongyang’s anger over Seoul’s refusal to resume cross-border tours that were halted in 2008 after the fatal shooting of a South Korean tourist by a North Korean guard near the resort.

North Korea insists it has done everything to explain the shooting and guarantee safety for future South Korean visitors. South Korea doubts the genuineness of the gestures, demanding an on-site probe participated in by its officials and tangible safety measures.

The tours earned millions of U.S. dollars for the sanctions-hit North Korean regime before they were suspended. The North Korean demand for their resumption comes as the isolated state struggles to curb its economic troubles that deepened under U.N. sanctions imposed for its two nuclear tests, the latest in May last year.

An official at Hyundai Asan, the chief South Korean operator of the now-suspended tours, said 40 people from 31 companies, including his own, applied for permits to visit North Korea on Tuesday.

The North last week demanded “real estate proprietors and agents” attend the implementation of its plan to freeze their assets, which include hotels, a golf course and a variety of shops.

Officials at the Unification Ministry in Seoul said they plan to grant the permits.

“It is our basic stance that we respect the decisions of the companies,” spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.

Dozens of South Korean firms possess 360 billion won (US$320 million) worth of real estate in the mountain tourist zone.

During a meeting with Hyundai Asan officials stationed at the resort Monday morning, North Korea did not specify which companies should attend the freeze this week, a ministry official here said.

“The North Korean authorities remained ambiguous,” the official said, declining to be identified. “That will leave the door open for anyone wanting to visit North Korea this week.”

South Koreans fear Pyongyang may be taking steps to confiscate more South Korean assets. The North seized the Seoul government-run facilities 10 days after freezing them and expelling personnel.

South Korea has pledged retaliatory measures without being specific. A senior Unification Ministry official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Monday the measures would be announced by early May.

South Korea also warned North Korea will be to blame for any further deterioration of relations between the divided states.

The Korea Herald speculates on how the South Korean government might retaliate:

The government is reportedly considering limiting the volume of agricultural and marine products from North Korea or tightening regulation of imports in other ways.

Certain North Korean items, such as sand, hard coal and mushrooms, already require the unification minister’s approval each time someone wants to bring them into the South. Seoul could expand the number of such items, making the import process more troublesome.

Currently, South Korean materials going into the joint industrial park in the North’s border town of Gaeseong and products rolled out from factories there account for more than 60 percent of inter-Korean trade.

Last month’s inter-Korean trade volume amounted to $202 million, 63 percent of which were goods going in and out of the Gaeseong park.

Since cross border tours to Mount Geumgang have been stalled, most of the remaining inter-Korean trade volume (35 percent) consists of agricultural and marine products.

Although the growth of inter-Korean trade has slowed under the Lee Myung-bak administration, South Korea is still the North’s second largest trading partner after China, according to the Unification Ministry.

Inter-Korean trade accounts for about 30 percent of the North’s trade with other countries, while China takes up about half.

The Seoul government could also further restrict nongovernmental aid to the North, which it has limited ever since Pyongyang launched a rocket in April last year.

It could also engage to the international community about the North’s “wrongful measures.”

Read the full stories here:
N. Korea to Directly Take Over Mt. Kumgang Tour
Donga Ilbo
4/26/2010

S. Koreans to visit N. Korea as Pyongyang moves to freeze their assets
Yonhap
Sam Kim
4/26/2010

Seoul may cut trade with N. Korea
Korea Herald
Kim So-hyun
4/25/2010

According to Yonhap:

South Korea denounced North Korea’s decision Friday to seize five South Korean facilities at a mountain resort on its soil and warned that Pyongyang will be held responsible for the deterioration of inter-Korean relations.

“It is an illegal and unreasonable measure that undermines the very foundation of the South-North relations,” a spokesman for South Korea’s Unification Ministry said in a statement after Pyongyang said it will seize the South Korean assets at Mount Kumgang.

“The North has proven itself to be an unfit partner for normal business and transactions,” it said.

North Korea also said other non-state South Korean assets at Mount Kumgang will be frozen, and that all employees from the South at the resort will be expelled. The measures were seen as aimed at pressuring Seoul to resume the suspended mountain tour program that had been a source of foreign currency for Pyongyang.

Seoul said it will take “strong measures” against the North. It did not elaborate.

“We cannot accept the (North’s) measures, as they are in violation of contracts between North Korea and our businesses, agreements between the governments and of international laws. It is an unjust step that undermines the very foundation of South-North relations,” a ministry official told reporters.

The North’s move came at the end of a two-day inspection by North Korean military officials of the mountain resort, where dozens of South Korean businesses and private investors own various facilities that are part of the suspended tourism program.

The five facilities to be seized include a family reunion center, funded and owned by Seoul’s National Red Cross, as well as a fire station and a duty free shop. They also include a cultural center and a hot spring resort, both owned by Seoul’s Korea Tourism Organization.

Pyongyang froze the assets, worth some 124 billion won (US$112 million), on April 13 after an on-site inspection by its officials late last month. The latest inspection ended Friday.

“First, we will confiscate all five assets of the South Korean authorities that have already been frozen in compensation for our loss due to the long suspension of the tour,” an unidentified spokesman for the General Guidance Bureau for the Development of Scenic Spots said in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The once lucrative tourism program for the impoverished North was suspended in July 2008 after a South Korean tourist was shot dead by a North Korean guard near a restricted area. Nearly 2 million South Koreans had visited the mountain resort since the tours began in 1998.

“The confiscated real estate will be put into the possession of the DPRK or handed over to new businessmen according to legal procedures,” the statement said, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The North said early last month that it will restart the tourism program with a new business partner unless Seoul agreed to resume the tours before the end of April.

“The situation has reached such an extreme phase that it is at the crossroads of a war or peace, much less thinking of the resumption of the tour. It is quite natural that we can no longer show generosity and tolerance to the south side under this situation,” the statement said.

Friday’s measure also included freezing of all assets owned by over 30 South Korean businesses and private investors.

Hyundai Asan, the main South Korean developer of the joint mountain resort, urged the North to withdraw its decision and the governments of the two Koreas to resolve the issue through dialogue.

“The road to Mount Kumgang must not be severed as the tours greatly helped promote cooperation and reconciliation between the South and the North and peace on the Korean Peninsula,” the business group said in a statement.

“We also urge our government to actively seek a solution to the current situation, as the joint economic cooperation project of the South and the North, as well as properties of businesses that invested in Mount Kumgang, now sit on the verge of a breakdown,” the statement said.

Read the full story here:
Seoul denounces N. Korea’s seizure of assets at Mount Kumgang
Yonhap
4/23/2010
Byun Duk-kun

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)
NK Brief No. 10-04-15-1
4/15/2010

As North Korean tours to Keumgang Mountain and other trips aimed at South Korean visitors are all currently frozen, trips into the DPRK by Chinese tourists are beginning to grow. On April 10, a North Korean official revealed that Chinese group tours would be warmly welcomed by Pyongyang, and on April 12, a group of approximately 400 Chinese visitors and officials arrived in the North. Pyongyang and Beijing reached an agreement on tours last February. Cho Seong-kyu, director of the Choson International Tours, stated that his office, responsible for tours for foreigners to North Korea, is preparing a tour course to Pyongyang, Kaesong, Myohyang Mountain and Nampo for Chinese visitors. He explained that since 1988, 20,000 Chinese tourists annually visit Pyongyang, and that many more tour courses were being prepared.

For the past four years, the Chinese government has banned group tours to the DPRK, but that restriction has been completely lifted. Now, tourist trains are being operated and the range of tours offered is growing. Group tours to North Korea were banned in 2006 after Chinese officials were found to have been inappropriately gambling during their trips, but tours will resume on May 12. With 800 Chinese tourists set to board a DPRK-bound train leaving from Hangzhou, it appears that many Chinese are interested in tours of North Korea. On March 18, China’s National Development and Reform Commission and its Bureau of Travel and Tourism released a “Northeast China Tourism Industry Development Plan,” in which it revealed the plan to permit tours to North Korea. Following last year’s measures to improve industry in the northeast provinces, Beijing is now aiming specifically to bolster the tourism industry in the region by arranging overland tours to Russia and North Korea, as well as developing other new domestic and international tour destinations.

In addition to the existing tour to Sonyang-Dandong-Pyongyang, new routes from Baishan (Jilin Province)-Changbai-Hyesan and Yanji-Hunchun-Fangchuan-Rajin/Chungjin have been included. Until now, tour courses to North Korea were limited to Dandong-Sinuiju-Pyongyang, Sanhezhen-Chungjin/Mount Chilbo, and Mount Baekdu-Samjiyon-Pyongyang. As Rajin Port is opened, the Bureau of Travel and Tourism also plans overland trips to the city, in conjunction with a ferry shuttling Chinese tourists to Vladivostok, South Korea, and Japan. In addition, the Yanbian Autonomous Prefecture is promoting the development of a longer tour, from Hunchun through Rajin, on to Pyongyang and even down to Panmunjom.

North Korea has announced the seizure of South Korean property at the Keumgang Mountain tourist resort, and now Chinese travel agents are signing contracts to sell tours to the resort developed mainly by Hyundai-Asan and South Korean government investment. North Korean authorities have offered six-month contracts allowing the Chinese tour operators to book Keumgang tours, guaranteeing them access to hotels and other facilities in the resort area. Over 1,000 Chinese tourists have already booked tours to Keumgang, to begin after April 20.

North Korea froze South Korean government assets in the resort, including the Visitors’ Center, a spa, and a duty-free store, and deported South Korean employees in a first stage of measures to pressure the South into restarting cross-border tours. On April 13, the North stepped up the measures, freezing Hyundai-Asan and other South Korean private-sector assets, ordering the deportation of employees related to these businesses as well. Korean Central Broadcasting reported on April 8, “Because of south Korean authorities, Hyundai’s tourism agreement and contract have become invalid,” announcing that domestic and international tours would begin again with a new tour operator.

And according to the Choson Ilbo:

The first tour groups from across China started off on their way to North Korea on Monday. China has organized group tours of North Korea since 1988, but they were available only to provinces bordering the North such as Liaoning and Jilin.

But on Monday, a group of 395 Chinese tourists left for North Korea by air or train from Beijing, Shenyang and Dandong, the China National Tourism Administration said. They will gather in Pyongyang before starting an eight-day tour of tourist spots in the capital like the Kim Il-sung statue and Mansudae, as well as Kaesong, Panmunjeom, Mt. Myohyang and Nampo.

Mt. Kumgang is not included in their itinerary, despite threats by the North to find another partner for visits to the scenic resorts. South Korea declined to resume tours there in the wake of the fatal shooting of a tourist in 2008 unless the safety of travelers is guaranteed.

However, some Chinese travel agents are offering tour programs that include Mt. Kumgang.

According to Yonhap:

Chinese travel agencies are selling tour programs to North Korea’s Mount Kumgang amid Pyongyang’s announcement that it will find a new partner in retaliation for Seoul’s reluctance to resume cross-border tours, tourism sources said Sunday.

Two Chinese agencies in the city of Tongcheng and the southern province of Guangdong are taking reservations for tour programs that include the scenic mountain and other sights, including Pyongyang, the ancient city of Kaesong and the border with South Korea.

However, it was unclear if the programs are related to the North Korea’s decision last week to dump South Korea’s Hyundai Asan for an unidentified new partner for the mountain tours. Sources in Beijing said that the link appears to be weak, as the Chinese programs had been under preparation before Pyongyang’s announcement last week.

North Korea is angry over South Korea’s reluctance to resume tours to the mountain, which had been a key source of foreign currency for the impoverished nation since 1998. They were suspended in 2008 following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist near the resort.

South Korea demands the North agree to a joint on-site investigation into the death and safety measures for tourists.

Some South Korean media reported last week that the North formed a partnership with a Chinese tour organizer to run tours to the mountain, but Seoul’s Unification Ministry said the reported partnership has not been confirmed.

North Korea’s already serious economic troubles have deepened in the wake of U.N. sanctions for its nuclear test last year, while the regime’s failed currency reform has fueled inflation, food shortages and even rare social unrest.

Meanwhile, about 400 Chinese people are scheduled to embark on a tour of key sights in North Korea. In February, Beijing formally granted permission to its citizens to go deep into the communist neighbor, lifting its previous policy of limiting tourism to the border area.

Read the full story here:
Chinese agencies sell tour programs to N. Korea’s Mount Kumgang
Yonhap
4/11/2010

UPDATE: According to Yonhap:

North Korea has told four employees at a South Korean-run mountain resort to leave the communist nation within 24 hours as part of measures to freeze Seoul-held assets there, sources here said Tuesday.

The North has also sealed the key holes of entrances to five facilities and has pasted keep-out stickers, they said. The facilities were built and run by the South Korean government and its state tourism agency.

The workers, ethnic Koreans from China, had been overseeing the maintenance of a family reunion center at Mount Kumgang. The other facilities subject to Tuesday’s asset freeze included a duty free shop run by Seoul’s Korea Tourism Organization.

The North’s measures were seen as an attempt to increase pressure on Seoul to resume a joint tourism program to the mountain resort that had been an important source of foreign currency for the impoverished nation.

Officials in Seoul earlier said the freezing of assets will have little actual impact as the facilities have hardly been in use since the cross-border tours to Mount Kumgang were suspended in 2008.

Still, the measure symbolizes Pyongyang’s anger over Seoul’s refusal to resume the lucrative project that had earned the regime millions of dollars a year. It also suggests that stronger steps, such as asset confiscations, could come if the South keeps refusing.

On Tuesday morning, North Korean officials began carrying out the measure, a source said without giving any specifics.

“We will respond after we see what the freezing measure will involve,” an official in Seoul said.

The tours, which began in 1998, had been a prominent symbol of reconciliation between the rival states that are still technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a ceasefire, not a peace treaty. Nearly two million South Koreans had visited the scenic mountain.

South Korea suspended the program in 2008 after one of its citizens was shot dead by a North Korean guard after entering a restricted area near the resort. Seoul has demanded a state-to-state guarantee of tourist safety as well as a joint on-site probe into the death before the tours can resume.

North Korea says it did everything to assure tourist safety in a deal that leader Kim Jong-il struck with the head of the tour’s main South Korean organizer, Hyundai Asan, last year.

South Korea has protested the North’s decision to freeze the five facilities which include a family reunion center, a fire station and a duty free shop.

Despite threats from the North, the government of South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has shown no signs of backing down. It also rejected the North’s demand that Seoul officials come to the resort to attend the asset freeze, and warned it would hold the North responsible if it causes any damage to resort facilities.

Since taking office in early 2008, Lee halted unconditional aid to the North, linking its resumption to progress North Korea makes in ending its nuclear weapons programs.

Amid the lack of aid from the South, North Korea’s economic troubles have deepened in the wake of fresh U.N. sanctions imposed after Pyongyang’s nuclear test last year, and the regime’s failed currency reform that worsened inflation and food shortages.

Here are some press releases from the Ministry of Unification: Statement 1, Statement 2.

ORIGINAL POST: According to the Associated Press:

North Korea informed South Korea that it will begin quitting a joint tourism project in the communist country this week, officials said Sunday, in another setback to relations between the countries.

North Korea said Thursday that it would freeze some South Korean assets at scenic Diamond Mountain, expel South Koreans working at the site and restart the stalled project with a new partner.

A day later, the North told the South that it will carry out the plan Tuesday, starting with the freezing of the South Korean government-owned assets that include a reunion center for families separated by the Korean War, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry.

It was not clear when the North would expel South Korean personnel, according to Hyundai Asan, the resort’s South Korean tour operator that relayed the North’s plan to the South Korean government.

The North said it would freeze assets at the site while South Korean officials were in attendance, but the South has no intention of sending officials to comply with the North’s request, ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

South Korea halted tours to the mountain resort on North Korea’s east coast in July 2008 after a South Korean tourist was fatally shot after allegedly entering a restricted military area next to the resort.

The North had recently expressed its willingness to restart the tours, a legitimate source of hard currency for the impoverished regime. But South Korea said the North must first accept a joint investigation into the shooting death.

North Korea’s decision to quit the tour project “is the inevitable consequence entailed by the moves of the South Korean authorities to escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen,” the North’s government-run Minju Joson newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Sunday.

Relations between the two Koreas have worsened since a conservative Seoul government took office in early 2008 with a pledge to get tough with the North.

But North Korea has tried to reach out to Washington and Seoul since last summer in an about-face that analysts and officials say shows the North feels the pain of U.N. sanctions adopted to punish it for its nuclear test in May.

The DPRK wants South Korean officials present for the occasion, but the South has refused.  According to the the AFP:

Seoul on Sunday rejected Pyongyang’s demand that South Korean officials come to a North Korean resort where the communist regime is about to freeze South Korean assets, worsening bilateral ties.

North Korea wants South Korean officials present on Tuesday when it freezes the assets, Seoul’s unification ministry spokesman Chun Hae-Sung said.

However Seoul will not comply with the summons, he said.

The North last week threatened to freeze assets at the Mount Kumgang resort after pressing Seoul in vain to lift its ban on tours to North Korea, which once earned the impoverished state tens of millions of dollars a year.

The North also declared its cross-border tour business deal with South Korean firm Hyundai Asan void, threatening to find a new partner to replace it and to expel some South Korean personnel.

Seoul suspended the cross-border tours in July 2008 after North Korean soldiers shot dead a South Korean housewife who strayed into a military zone.

South Korea demands firm agreements on the safety of visitors, a joint investigation into the shooting and the North’s apology for the killing.

The North says it has already given safety guarantees.

The latest tit-for-tat reflects the deterioration in relations since the South’s conservative government took office in 2008 and took a tougher line with Pyongyang, linking economic cooperation with the North to progress on its nuclear disarmament.

The North’s official Minju Joson newspaper said Sunday the collapsing tour deal “is the inevitable consequence entailed by the moves of the South Korean authorities to escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen.”

It accused Seoul of overturning previous agreements on resuming the tours, which began in 1998.

Nearly two million South Koreans had travelled to the North in the past decade, earning it some 487 million dollars.

North Korea is also suffering economically from tougher sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council since Pyongyang’s second nuclear test in 2009.

It says it will freeze five Seoul-owned assets — a family reunion centre, a fire station, a culture centre, a spa and a duty free shop — in the Mount Kumgang resort, but did not specify how, Seoul officials said Sunday.

The South has urged the North to reverse its decision, saying the communist state is breaching business contracts and international norms.

Pyongyang also threatens to re-examine an industrial park with the South at Kaesong just north of the border.

Some 42,000 North Koreans work at 110 South Korean-funded plants at Kaesong, which like Kumgang is a valuable source of scarce hard currency for the North.

Here is a link to previous Kumgang stories.

Read the full story here:
NKorea to start quitting joint tour this week
Associated Press
Kim Hyung-Jin
4/11/2010