From NK Zone:
Michael Rank
10/15/2006
The Chinese businessman who is planning to develop the North Korean port of Rajin under a 50-year agreement with the border city of Hunchun says the deal remains on track despite NK’s nuclear test.
Fan Yingsheng, a property developer from Hunan province, said a road between the two cities should be completed within 15 months but gave few other details.
He told the Shanghai Evening Post [in Chinese] that U.N. sanctions “are something that we are expecting, and won’t have much effect on us.”
“After the nuclear test, North Korean colleagues did not tell my company about anything being different, I didn’t even receive any phone calls from them, which shows that it’s business as usual.
”So I am still planning to fly to Pyongyang to sign an agreement as planned, and haven’t thought of changing my schedule.“
Fan was speaking from Hunchun on October 12, shortly after meeting a group of North Korean officials, and was about to head across the border to Raseon where his company apparently has its main North Korean office. He said this visit had been scheduled a month ago.
The ceding of Rajin, an ice-free port with a handling capacity of three million tonnes a year, will give access to the sea to inland areas of northeast China which at present must send freight long distances by rail to the port of Dalian on the Bohai gulf.
The agreement also provides for the construction of a 5-10 square km industrial zone and a 67 km highway, and envisages that the Rajin area will become a processing zone for Chinese goods which will then be re-exported to southern China.
Fan is reported to have put up half the initial capital investment of 60 million euros ($70 million). The sum could not be denominated in dollars for political reasons.
Fan said in July that the Chinese side had approved the leasing of the port as had the city of Raseon, and “all we are waiting for is for the Korean central government to give its approval…”
