Pictured above (Google Earth): Growth of the Kaesong Industrial Center (Apr. 2004, Jan. 2006, Sept. 2009)
According to Yonhap:
South Korean factories in an industrial complex in North Korea produced goods worth US$34.7 million in March, setting a monthly output record since the two Koreas launched the zone in 2004, Seoul’s Unification Ministry said Wednesday.
The complex, a key symbol of rapprochement between the two Koreas, combines the South’s technology and management expertise with the North’s cheap labor.
More than 46,000 North Koreans work for about 120 South Korean firms operating in the North Korean border city of Kaesong to produce clothes, utensils, watches and other low-tech goods.
The two divided Koreas managed to maintain the zone despite a chill in their relations over the North’s two deadly attacks on the South last year that killed 50 South Koreans.
UPDATE (2011-5-27): The Wall Street Journal’s Korea Real-Time offers some 2010 joint-Korean trade and aid umbers:
For the full year, general trade between the two Koreas amounted to $118 million, down 54% from $256 million in 2009.
But the joint industrial complex at Kaesong, a city just inside North Korea on the west side of the inter-Korean border, continued to flourish.
The volume of trade at the Kaesong Industrial Complex, goods moving into the approximately 120 factories there and then being shipped back south after North Korean workers added value, rose 54% to $1.44 billion last year from $941 million in 2009.
As part of the penalties following the Cheonan incident, the South Korean government limited the number of South Koreans who could stay at the Kaesong complex. The result: one-day visits to the complex soared, lifting the total number of South Koreans who visited the North.
For all of 2010, 130,119 South Koreans went to the North while just 130 North Koreans visited the South. In 2009, 120,616 South Koreans went to the North and 246 North Koreans visited the South.
South Korea’s assistance to North Korea also dropped sharply last year, to 30.1 bililon won from 77.5 billion won a year earlier. The South’s direct government assistance was 8 billion won, down from 10.4 billion won in 2009.
Private assistance from South Korea also fell to 20 billion won in 2010, from 37.7 billion won in 2009.
Read the full story here:
Production at Koreas’ industrial complex sets monthly record
Yonhap
2011-5-18
