UPDATE: A Catholic Priest will be operating a mission out of the factory. Read more about this here.
ORIGINAL POST: Yes, you read the title correctly. Billed by Yonhap as the first inter-Korean joint venture in Pyongyang:
Pyongyang Hemp Textiles is a cooperative effort between the South’s Andong Hemp Textiles and the North’s Saebyol General Trading Co., with a total investment of US$30 million shared equally by the two sides, according to the officials.
Around 1,000 North Koreans will be working for the textiles and logistics firm, which is built on 47,000 square meters of land in Pyongyang, they said.
…The opening ceremony for the joint venture was delayed for close to two months due to deteriorating inter-Korean relations, which worsened after a South Korean woman was shot to death while traveling the communist country in early July. Pyongyang refused to apologize for the shooting, and denied requests from Seoul to cooperate in a fact-finding mission into the death.
If anyone has any idea where this company is located on Google Earth, please let me know.
According to Wikipedia, which is not an authoritative source:
Industrial Hemp is produced in many countries around the world. Major producers include Canada, France, and China. The United States is the only industrialized nation to continue to ban industrial hemp. While the Hemp is imported to the United States more than to any other country, the United States Government does not distinguish between marijuana and non-psychoactive Cannabis used for industrial and commercial purposes.
