North Korean Economy Watch

BBC
4/23/2007

South Korea’s chief nuclear negotiator is travelling to the US to try to resolve a major stumbling block to North Korea’s nuclear disarmament.

Chun Yung-woo said he did not want to see a dispute over North Korean bank accounts scupper progress towards ending the North’s nuclear programme.

Washington has lifted a freeze on the North’s accounts, but Pyongyang appears to be unable to access the money.

On Sunday South Korea agreed to resume food aid shipments to the North.

Following five days of talks in Pyongyang, Seoul said it would begin delivering 400,000 tonnes of rice to its impoverished neighbour.

While no reference was made to the North’s nuclear programme in the final communique at the talks, Seoul has insisted the aid is linked to progress on disarmament.

Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung reiterated the South’s position on Monday, saying the aid was dependent on whether the North fulfilled its pledge to begin the process of dismantling its nuclear programme.

“The rice issue is not just a humanitarian issue, but a very symbolic and essential task for peace,” he told MBC radio.

‘Technical issues’

The North missed a mid-April deadline – agreed on 13 February between the two Koreas, Japan, China, Russia and the US – to “shut down and seal” its Yongbyon reactor in return for aid.

Pyongyang made clear it would only close the reactor if $25m (£13m) of its money frozen in the Macau-based bank Banco Delta Asia (BDA) was returned.

The US has said the accounts are now unfrozen, and insists it does not know why the North has left the funds untouched.

South Korea’s Chun Yung-woo said his talks with US counterpart Christopher Hill in Washington would focus on “technical issues” over the banking dispute.

“We cannot continue putting off the more important denuclearisation issue because of this BDA issue,” he said before leaving Seoul.

He said the North’s demands had “generally been identified”, but more time was needed to fully resolve the issue, Yonhap news agency reports.

“Let us wait and see for a little longer because the parties are working hard for the resolution,” he said.

The nuclear issue, as well as rice aid, was central to intense negotiations between the two Koreas, which went into an unscheduled fifth day on Sunday.

Seoul, a major food donor to its northern neighbour, suspended aid after Pyongyang’s missile tests in July 2006, which was followed by a nuclear test in October.

The BBC’s Charles Scanlon in Seoul says Pyongyang badly needs the aid, because stocks from last year’s harvest are running out.

The first rice shipments are due to begin arriving in the North in May.

Star Bulletin
Jim Borg
4/23/2007

The Mount Kumgang project has become a place of spiritual if not political reconnection

Amid ongoing international tensions, North Korea has embraced Western-style tourism at its most famous natural attraction, Mount Kumgang.

Thousands of Korean and foreign tourists flock each month to a modern resort under development by South Korea’s Hyundai Asan Corp., which paid $1 billion for exclusive rights to the business.

After $400 million in additional expenditures since 1998, Hyundai Asan has created not only a tourism hub, but the epicenter for reunification efforts on the peninsula.

“Through the Kumgang tourism business, the reconciliation process has begun between the North and the South,” says Young-Hyun Kim, the company’s on-site general managing director.

Star-Bulletin reporter Jim Borg visited the stunning locale last week as part of a journalism exchange sponsored by the East-West Center and the Korea Press Foundation.

MOUNT KUMGANG, North Korea »

Mist rose from the high mountain pool under the thundering waters of Kuryong Falls, adding to the chilly dampness of the day.

Four hours after an unsmiling North Korean soldier scrutinized our passports and waved us on, we stood at the top of a trail traveled each month by thousands of tourists from both sides of the border, all in search of a spiritual reconnection with their ancestral land.

On a divided peninsula technically still at war, Mount Kumgang has become part of a bold experiment in rapprochement. As their political leaders stagger toward the stated goal of reunification, North and South Korea have carved a modern resort out of this imposing landscape along the Sea of Japan.

Despite international tensions over North Korea’s nuclear program and missile launches last July, South Korea’s Hyundai Asan Corp. is pressing ahead with plans to develop this 922-square-mile expanse a short drive north of the Demilitarized Zone.

Already in place are three multistory hotels, a beach lodge for families, 34 single-family cabins, camping facilities, four North Korean restaurants, six South Korean restaurants, duty-free shops, convenience stores, a hot-spring spa, shows featuring acrobats and folk music, and stone-paved trails punctuated by snack tables. A swimming beach adjoins the floating Hotel Haekumgang in nearby Kosung Bay.

A railway links the two countries here. North Korea, for obscure reasons, has yet to green-light the trains, and border stations remain eerily empty, but Hyundai Asan’s Ha-Jung “Dan” Byun expresses confidence that that hurdle will be cleared soon.

“Everything is connected,” he says. “Everything is ready. What we are waiting for is the final confirmation between the two governments.”

Byun, general manager for planning and foreign investor relations, greeted U.S. reporters visiting Mount Kumgang last week as part of a program sponsored by the East-West Center. This is the first time that the Korea-United States Journalism Exchange, now in its third year, has sent reporters into North Korea.

One of the lessons that emerged is that business interests seem to be succeeding where diplomacy has often failed.

Hyundai Asan, an enterprise separate from the automotive and shipbuilding giants, paid $1 billion to North Korea for exclusive business rights at Mount Kumgang and, farther west, the Kaesong Industrial Complex, where South Korean technology meets cheap North Korean labor.

Scandal clouded the early years of the association, when corruption and embezzlement charges presumably prompted the company’s chairman, Chung Mong-hun, to commit suicide in 2003 by leaping from his 12th-floor office in Seoul. Asked whether Hyundai Asan’s largesse could be viewed as helping to finance North Korea’s weapons programs, Byun said the firm believes the lump sum payments in 1999-2000 were used for economic revitalization.

But even elsewhere along the Demilitarized Zone, a remnant of the 1950-53 Korean War, conflict has bred commerce, drawing tourists to souvenir shops and a carnival park called Peace Land. Tourists and South Korean schoolchildren are taken by tram into a tunnel dug under the DMZ by the North Koreans and discovered in 1978.

Peace Land is a short drive from Seoul, up a highway where billboard-type advertising masks barricades rigged with explosives to stop invading tanks.

South Koreans seem at ease with this dichotomy, taking North Korean anti-U.S. rhetoric and military posturing in stride in an atmosphere of care-free prosperity.

THE BEDROCK for North Korea’s burgeoning tourism is a collection of crags that seem to reach skyward like fingers pressed in prayer. Mile-high Birobong Peak caps this Yosemite-esque experience.

The brochure for Mount Kumgang shows colorful photos in every season, but even in a chilly drizzle the three-hour trek was breathtaking. A river spilled down the narrow canyon to collect in crystal green pools.

“The water is pure and clear,” observed Yong-Sik Im, 41, who came to the mountain with 31 other residents of Namgu village. He recalled singing a song about Mount Kumgang as a schoolboy and always longed to visit.

South Korean hikers here are essentially pilgrims.

At Kumgang they see harmonious manifestations of heaven, earth and water, symbolized on the national flag. The mountain’s yin-yang mix of strength and fluidity has even inspired some movements in the Korean martial art of tae kwon do.

Byun said most South Koreans hope to visit this spot at least once before they die. More than 1.4 million have come since 1998, with a highway route open since 2003.

The site has also been used for meetings arranged by the Red Cross between family members separated by the border. Special accommodations for those families are due to open next year.

THE NORTH KOREAN security guards and snack vendors we met along the trail were polite, if cool, and talked little about their lifestyles except to say they are satisfied.

The exception was one particularly articulate female worker, obviously briefed on the six-nation nuclear talks and other current events, who criticized the United States for aggression. At least one North Korean said the United States deserved the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because of chronic warmongering.

Most of the North Korean workers, including the waitresses at the Okryukwan restaurant, where lunch was served after the hike, refused to be photographed. But over this caution hovered a palpable aura of promise.

Maybe it arises from the $400 million that Hyundai Asan has already spent on development above the $1 billion for rights.

About 1,500 people make a living here: 95 with Hyundai Asan, another 162 with other South Korean companies, about 780 North Koreans and 450 ethnic Koreans recruited by the North Koreans in China.

But don’t try to spend your South Korean currency in the North Korean shops.

Only U.S. dollars are accepted.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE (to your own Google Earth)

Using numerous maps, articles, and interviews I have mapped out North Korea by “industry” (or topic) on Google Earth.  This is the most authoritative map of North Korea that exists publicly today.

Agriculture, aviation, cultural, manufacturing, railroad, energy, politics, sports, military, religion, leisure, national parks…they are all here, and will captivate anyone interested in North Korea for hours.

Naturally, I cannot vouch for the authenticity of many locations since I have not seen or been to them, but great efforts have been made to check for authenticity. In many cases, I have posted sources, though not for all. This is a thorough compilation of lots of material, but I will leave it up to the reader to make up their own minds on the more “controversial” locations.  In time, I hope to expand this further by adding canal and road networks. 

I hope this post will launch a new interest in North Korea. There is still plenty more to learn, and I look forward to hearing about improvements that can be made.

Bloomberg
4/22/2007
Heejin Koo

North Korea and South Korea today set a new date to test an inter-Korean railway, which could eventually provide South Korea with a rail link across Asia to Europe.

The two Koreas, still technically at war after their 1950- 53 conflict ended without a peace agreement, will hold the test on May 17, the chief South Korean delegate to the talks, Chin Dong Soo, said, after meetings in Pyongyang on inter-Korean economic cooperation that began April 18.

The two countries “will hold working level-meetings on the matter in Gaeseong on April 27-28, and will make an effort to ensure that the Gyeongui Line and the East Coast Line can begin operations in the near future,” a Unification Ministry statement cited Chin as saying in a news briefing. “The two sides will also cooperate on providing military assurances so that the test can take place.”

Last year, South Korea had been scheduled to test the 24 kilometer (15 mile) Gyeongui Line in the west, which stretches from South Korea’s northernmost station of Munsan to Gaeseong in North Korea, and North Korea would have conducted a similar test on the East Coast Line that joins the two nations on the east of the peninsula. The test run was repeatedly postponed from 2004, as North Korea dragged its feet without giving specific reasons.

Isolated Peninsula

South Korea is surrounded by the sea on three sides and by the demilitarized zone on the border in the North. The inter- Korean route may cut transportation costs to Europe by as much as 20 percent and delivery time by a third.

South Korea has been trying to lay such tracks since 1982. The Korea Institute for National Unification estimated in May 2004 that it would cost as much as 6.1 trillion won ($6.3 billion) to upgrade track, signals and stations from South Korea through the North to Russia’s Trans-Siberian railway.

During this round of bilateral economic talks, South Korea had wanted assurances from North Korea that it would fulfill its Feb. 13 pledge to shut down its Yongbyon nuclear reactor. North Korea missed a deadline of April 14, because of holdups in retrieving $25 million of funds that had been held in previously frozen accounts at Macau’s Banco Delta Asia as a result of U.S. Treasury Department financial sanctions in 2005.

Rice Aid Promised

South Korea promised North Korea 400,000 tons of rice aid, as part of the agreement reached today, “for humanitarian reasons,” Chin said. “Still, We made it very clear that the rice aid would be difficult if North Korea fails to comply with the Feb. 13 agreement.”

North Korea had agreed to shut down its reactor for 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil, which South Korea offered to provide. North Korea will get economic assistance equivalent to another 950,000 tons of heavy fuel if it disables its nuclear program. The assistance will be provided by the U.S., South Korea, China, Japan and Russia.

The two sides also agreed to restart their earlier agreement to jointly develop the North’s mines as well as its manufacturing industries. The two sides will start surveys for underground resources and South Korea will begin shipping raw materials to the North in June.

North Korea and South Korea announced in July 2005 they will develop the communist nation’s natural resources. They are seeking to develop what may become Asia’s largest zinc mine, South Korea’s state-run Korea Resources Corp. said in January.

The two Koreas agreed to hold the next round of bilateral economic talks in July in South Korea, with the specific date and venue to be set in the future.

Korea Herald
4/23/2007

South Korea and the United States have agreed not to apply International Labor Organization regulations to an inter-Korean industrial park in North Korea’s border city of Gaeseong, a South Korean lawmaker claimed yesterday.

Kim Won-woong, head of the National Assembly’s unification, foreign affairs and trade committee, said the Gaeseong industrial park is certain to remain an exception to the ILO’s labor rules, paving the ground for Seoul and Washington to designate Gaeseong as an “outward processing zone” (OPZ) on the Korean peninsula.

Gaeseong, located just north of the inter-Korean border, currently houses 23 manufacturing plants, which combine South Korea’s capital with North Korea’s cheap labor.

Under an FTA deal concluded at the beginning of this month, South Korea and the United States agreed to set up a joint OPZ review committee that will identify areas in North Korea that might be designated as OPZs and consider their qualifications if they meet the necessary criteria, including labor and wage practices. But the labor sector was expected to pose a dilemma as North Korea is not a member of the ILO, which stipulates three basic labor rights, namely the right to unionize, collective bargaining and industrial action.

“South Korea and the United States agreed to consider North Korea’s non-ILO member status and unique labor circumstances in the designation of OPZs in the communist state,” said Kim, citing a document he obtained from the Foreign Affairs and Trade Ministry.

In related news, the two Koreas agreed yesterday at the 13th economic cooperation talks in Pyongyang to continue discussing how to fortify the operations at the industrial complex from next month.

Gaeseong park is considered a signature inter-Korean project symbolizing the efforts of expanding exchanges.

South Korea, under the engagement policy of President Roh Moo-hyun, aims to gradually open up North Korea towards market economy for an eventual reform.

Yonhap
4/22/2007

South and North Korea on Sunday agreed to conduct test runs of cross-border railways next month and make efforts to ensure a military guarantee for their safe operations.

The South also agreed to provide 400,000 tons of rice to the impoverished North in late May, but the accord reached by the two sides did not include a commitment by North Korea to take steps toward dismantlement of its nuclear programs, said pool reports from Pyongyang, the venue of the talks.

The Koreas announced a 10-point agreement on test runs of cross-border railways, rice aid and expanded economic cooperation after they engaged in marathon talks. The four-day talks stretched into an extra day as the two sides failed to thrash out differences by the deadline.

“The two Koreas will hold working-level talks to discuss operations of cross-border railways in Kaesong on April 27-28,” the agreement said. They agreed to make efforts to secure a military security guarantee prior to conducting the test runs on May 17.

The security issue was a main sticking point as South Korean officials contended that the test runs will be “meaningless” if there is no safety guarantee on the part of the North Korean military.

In May 2006, North Korea abruptly called off the scheduled test runs under apparent pressure from its hard-line military.

The two sides were originally scheduled to issue a joint press statement at 2 p.m. on Saturday, but they held a series of overnight negotiations to settle remaining differences and work out the wording for a final draft of a joint statement.

On Thursday, the North Korean delegation stormed out of the conference room to protest the South’s call for the North’s quick implementation of a denuclearization agreement, but talks resumed later as scheduled.

“During the talks, we made clear that it will be difficult to provide rice unless North Korea acts to fulfill the Feb. 13 agreement,” Chin Dong-soo, chief of the South Korean delegation, said in a press briefing held in Pyongyang after the announcement of the agreement.

South Korea also agreed to provide raw materials to the North to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap in June in return for its natural resources. A South Korean delegation will visit envisioned development sites in the North that month. Working-level negotiations on this issue will be held in the North Korean border city of Kaesong on May 2-4.

Shortly after the North conducted missile tests in July, the South suspended food and fertilizer aid. But fertilizer aid was resumed in late March, a few weeks after the two sides agreed to repair their strained ties.

During the talks, the North called for receiving raw materials from the South in exchange for providing its natural resources “close to the time when railway test runs are conducted,” the pool reports said.

But the South made clear that it will provide the North with US$80 million worth of raw materials only after the two sides conduct the test runs.

The reconnection of severed train lines was one of the tangible inter-Korean rapprochement projects agreed upon following the historic summit between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong-il in 2000.

The tracks, one line cutting across the western section of the border and the other crossing the eastern side, were completed and set to undergo test runs. A set of parallel roads has been in use since 2005 for South Koreans traveling to the North.

In 2005, South Korea agreed to offer raw materials to the North to help it produce clothing, footwear and soap starting in 2006. In return, the North was to provide the South with minerals, such as zinc and magnesite, after mines were developed with South Korean investments guaranteed by Pyongyang.

But the economic accord was not implemented as North Korea cancelled the test runs of the railways last May.

The pool reports said the South pushed to include the use of overland transportation in a clause of the agreement, but the two sides failed to see eye-to-eye on the issue. They agreed to hold talks in Kaesong to discuss ways of advancing into third countries in the field of natural resource development.

The next economic cooperation meeting will be held in the South in July 2007, and the two Koreas agreed to reach an agreement on the prevention of flooding in shared areas near the Imjin River and implement it after exchanging a document in early May.

The latest inter-Korean agreement came just a week after the communist nation failed to meet the April 14 deadline to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities under a six-nation agreement signed in Beijing in February.

North Korea has said it would take the first steps toward nuclear dismantlement as soon as it confirms the release of its funds frozen in a Macau bank since September 2005.

Macau’s financial authorities unblocked the North’s US$25 million in Banco Delta Asia, but the deadline passed with no word from the North on whether it has confirmed the release of the funds or when it will start implementing the initial steps.

Under the Feb. 13 agreement, North Korea pledged to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days. In return, North Korea would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.

The U.S. promised to resolve the financial issue within 30 days, but failed to do so because of technical complications.

Yonhap
Lee Dong-min
4/20/2007

The United States is considering starting exchange programs with North Korea, potentially including government officials, to broaden bilateral relations and help open up one of the most closed societies in the world, a White House envoy said Thursday.

Jay Lefkowitz, appointed by the U.S. president to deal with North Korean human rights issues, said the exchanges could be between athletes, musicians, artists and even government officials.

“This is something we are thinking about,” Lefkowitz said at a session hosted by the Heritage Foundation.

He wasn’t sure whether North Korea would be receptive, the envoy said, “but exchange programs, I think, are ultimately a wonderful way to broaden relationships … they let real people interact with real people.”

It could be similar to the “ping pong diplomacy” initiated with China, he said, and the opportunity would be beneficial for both countries.

“It is highly likely that the people North Korea sends abroad will be chosen from the elites,” Lefkowitz said.  “Nonetheless, even the most pro-regime participant will undoubtedly have his assumptions jarred by seeing the outside world.”

U.S. relations with North Korea are heavily restricted by domestic laws. Pyongyang, denounced annually in human rights reports as one of the world’s most oppressive regimes, is also suspected of developing nuclear weapons and sponsoring terrorism.

The two countries held their first diplomatic normalization talks last month, a process begun when North Korea signed on to an agreement to eventually give up its nuclear weapons and programs.

Lefkowitz said human rights improvement in North Korea is a prerequisite to establishing formal relations.

“If the North Korean government ever wants to be seen as legitimate, it will have to make progress on human rights,” he said.

There is a glimmer of hope, the envoy said, quoting a Russian expert on North Korea who says a “quiet revolution” is under way in the communist nation and that the government there is gradually losing control over its people.

The phenomenon, Lefkowitz said, is very similar to what happened in the last days of the Soviet Union.

He criticized China for refusing to help North Korean refugees flowing into the country through their shared borders and said next year’s Beijing Olympics is a chance to highlight the situation.

“Does anyone seriously believe that a massive abuse (of) the refugee population will go unnoticed? I certainly hope not,” Lefkowitz said.

“This is an area where the international media can play a big role of exposing what’s going on.”

The envoy repeated his skepticism about the Kaesong industrial complex, an inter-Korean pilot economic project. Located just north of the border, the complex houses factories built with South Korean capital and run by North Korean labor.

Lefkowitz refuted argument that the project guarantees the same kind of success from China’s special economic zones.

In China, the companies operated under relatively free market conditions and accepted foreign investment and participation, he said.

For Kaesong, the “most troubling” is lack of overall transparency, he argued.

“This does not necessarily foretell liberalization,” he said. “Until there is transparency, other countries should not import goods made in Kaesong.”

Yonhap
4/20/2007

South Korea sustained a loss of some US$3 million on Friday as its contract for fuel oil aid to North Korea expired, the Unification Ministry said.

South Korea had planned to send 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil to the North unless the communist country missed last Saturday’s deadline for taking initial steps toward its nuclear dismantlement under a landmark deal signed in February.

“The contract between the procurement authorities and GS Caltex expired today. The exact amount of penalty money is not clear, but it will amount to some 3.6 billion won given the cost of loading and storage,” the ministry said in a statement.

On Feb. 13, North Korea pledged to shut down its main nuclear reactor and allow U.N. inspectors back into the country within 60 days. In return, North Korea would receive aid equal to 50,000 tons of heavy fuel oil from South Korea.

North Korea could receive another 950,000 tons in fuel aid if it disables the reactor irreversibly and declares a list of all nuclear programs to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The cost of the aid will be equitably distributed among the other countries in the six-nation talks.

But the North failed to shut down and seal its nuclear facilities by last Saturday, saying it would take first steps toward nuclear dismantlement as soon as it confirms the release of its funds frozen in a Macau bank since September 2005.

Macau’s financial authorities unblocked the North’s US$25 million in Banco Delta Asia, but the North has neither withdrawn the funds nor said when it will start implementing the initial steps.

“The contract was signed with an eye on the Saturday deadline and the IAEA’s nuclear inspection, but the unexpected Banco Delta Asia issue delayed the implementation of the agreement, costing us the penalty,” a ministry official said, asking to remain anonymous.

The official added that a new contract for heavy fuel oil will be made in consideration of the progress in the six-nation talks, involving the two Koreas, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

KCNA
4/20/2007

Kim Chun Bong was appointed as the DPRK ambassador e.p. to the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, according to a decree of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People’s Assembly.

Korea Times
Jung Sung-ki
4/20/2007

A National Assembly panel Friday approved a bill to give full-fledged support to domestic firms operating in the inter-Korean industrial park in the North Korean border city of Kaesong under South Korean law.

The Assembly’s Unification, Foreign Affairs and Trade Committee endorsed the bill under which South Korean companies in the Kaesong complex are to receive financial support from the government.

Under the bill, companies concerned will get government funds for infrastructure in the industrial zone and be subject to tax reduction in case of investment in the North.

South Korean insurance acts and other labor-related laws will cover employees under the bills.

The complex is a symbol of the South’s engagement policy toward the North and cross-border reconciliation, along with the South-led tourism program at Mt. Kumgang in North Korea.

About 20 South Korean firms are operating in the joint complex employing more than 13,000 North Korean workers.