Korea Herald
Lee Joo-hee
1/12/2007
The newest building in the inter-Korean industrial park in Gaeseong will be up for lease from early next month, Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung said yesterday.
The apartment-style factory, with a space of some 8,000 pyeong (25,000 square meters), will be large enough for as many as 40 small manufacturers.
Units in the building, constructed by the Korea Industrial Complex Corporation, will be leased to smaller-sized businesses making garments, accessories and other such goods, the Office of Gaeseong Industrial Complex Project at the ministry said.
The building will be completed this June, it said.
This is the first open lease of a building in the industrial park since North Korea’s missile launches last July.
“We have agreed that there was no reason to delay the lease any longer, considering it would provide momentum to the economy and offer opportunities for small- and medium-sized businesses,” Lee said in a weekly press briefing.
The Gaeseong park is favored by companies seeking low rental and labor costs.
But the sale of the remainder of the main complex is still suspended due to a deadlocked security situation following the North’s nuclear test last October.
Output at the industrial park surpassed $10 million for the first time in December last year, Lee said.
Touching on the reported spread of scarlet fever in the North, the minister said the government will not provide medical aid.
“As scarlet fever is not a fatal infectious disease we deem that North Korea will be able to solve the problem on its own. There will be no aid regarding this matter.”
Scarlet fever broke out in northern Ryanggang Province in October last year.
Good Neighbors International, a South Korean civic organization, shipped 36 types of medicines, including penicillin and antibiotics worth some $5 million, to the region.
Last month, the Join Together Society, a humanitarian aid group in Seoul, shipped a total of 400,000 doses of penicillin to the North.
