Yonhap
Park Hyun Min
4/11/2007
An report estimated that it would cost North Korea 39.7 trillion won (approx. US$ 42.7 billions) during the first 14 years of reform and development.
A report released on the 9th by Managing Director Kim Won Bae and fellow associates of the Northeast Asian Regional Development Center for the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements, analyzed the costs required by North Korea to commence essential reform based on agreements made to the resolution of North Korea’s nuclear issues.
On an optimistic premise that North Korea and foreign diplomatic relations normalize and that proactive reform and development policies are implemented, the report forecasted that the North Korean economy would rapidly grow similar to China and Vietnam. Contrastingly, if reform policies remained passive and the normalization of foreign relations delayed, the report predicted that the country would be unable to escape from the adverse state.
The report estimated that a minimum of 23.7 trillion won and maximum 39.7 trillion won would be needed for investments, if active reform were to take place. Retrospectively, if reform were to take a slow stance, then approximately 11.5~26.4 trillion won would be needed.
For every 1 trillion won North Korea invested in construction, the report claimed that it would gain approximately 2.7 trillion won. If South Korea were to invest 1 trillion won in North Korea, then the affect would be a little less with a profit of 2.5 trillion won.
Furthermore, if North Korea development was based on South-North cooperation, then South Korea would have the burden of supporting North Korea 319~698 billion won annually during the first phase (2007~2011), and then an additional 1.29~1.95 trillion won during the second phase (2012~2020).
If the international community became involved, South Korea would only need to support 336~515 billion won annually in the first phase and 651 billion won to 1.11 trillion won during the second.
The report also claimed that the direction of the development on the Korean Peninsula should be based on cooperation between South and North Korea with the possibility of transferring this support to neighboring countries.
Further, basic facilities managed by South-North Korea cooperation would be supervised into three industries and development around the border locations currently separating South and North Korea would be managed by North Korea. This would extend to raw materials and production also.
Mr. Kim who was in charge of the research project said, “Already, cooperation between the South and the North is accurately and effectively taking precedence over the North Korea issue within the international community” and added, “North Korea, the Korean Peninsula, nations interested in understanding North Korea and the international community must join to destroy North Korea’s nuclear development, support the North Korean economy and help solve its issues.”
