Number of N.K. defectors halves in Kim Jong-un era

January 4th, 2016

According to Yonhap:

The number of North Korean defectors to South Korea has halved since the launch of the Kim Jong-un regime, apparently attributable to the communist nation’s tougher border control, the Unification Ministry said Monday.

A total of 1,277 North Koreans entered South Korea via China and other countries in 2015, down 52.8 percent from 2,706 recorded in 2011.

Kim took the helm of the North in late 2011 soon after the death of his father Kim Jong-il.

The number of North Korean defectors settling in the South first topped 1,000 in 2001, and it had steadily increased to 2,914 in 2009.

But it has rapidly declined to 1,502 in 2012, 1,514 in 2014, and 1,397 in 2014, according to the ministry amid North Korea’s intensified crackdown on those attempting to flee the country.

The ratio of women has soared. More than 80 percent of the North Korean defectors who came to the South in 2015 were female.

Women, especially those working at markets, seem to be less subject to surveillance than men with regular jobs. It’s also easier for women to get jobs, like housekeeping, in China and to make money needed for coming to the South.

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Number of N.K. defectors halves after Kim Jong-un assumes power
Yonhap
2016-1-4

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DPRK spends quarter of GDP on military from 2002-2012:

January 4th, 2016

According to Yonhap (via Korea Herald):

North Korea spent nearly a quarter of its gross domestic product on the military on average between 2002-2012, making the communist nation the world’s No. 1 in terms of military expenditures relative to its GDP, according to U.S. data.

According to the State Department’s World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 2015 report, the North’s military expenditures averaged about US$4 billion a year. That accounts for 23.8 percent of the country’s average GDP of $17 billion during the period.

Oman was a distant second on the list, spending 10.9 percent of its GDP on the military, followed by the African nation of Eritrea with 8.6 percent and Saudi Arabia with 8.2 percent. South Korea ranked 48th with 2.5 percent.

In absolute terms, however, the North’s annual military spending during the period ranked only 36th in the world, while South Korea’s ranked 11th, spending an average $26 billion. The U.S. was by far the world’s No. 1 with $656 billion a year on average, way ahead of runner-up China’s $88.5 billion.

In 2012 alone, the U.S. military expenditures amounted to $724, while China’s totaled $12.6. North Korea’s 2012 military spending came to $3.85 billion, while South Korea’s expenditures totaled $31.9 billion, according to the report.

North Korea also ranked first in the number of troops relative to population, with 1.17 million troops. The number also represented the third largest after China’s 2.21 million and the United States’ 1.41 million. South Korea ranked seventh with 679,000 troops.

The U.S. was by far the biggest arms exporter in the world, selling an average $102.4 billion worth of weapons to foreign countries a year during the period. Russia came next but trailed with only $6.8 billion worth of exports.

North Korea ranked 27th on the list, with $100 million of annual arms exports. But Pyongyang’s arms exports accounted for 10.2 percent of its total exports, making the country the No. 1 in terms of the proportion of weapons to total exports. (Yonhap)

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North Korea spends quarter of GDP on military from 2002-2012: U.S. data
Yonhap (via Korea Herald)
2016-1-4

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Kim Jong Un’s new year message focuses on building an economic powerhouse

January 3rd, 2016

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)

In his 2016 New Year Speech, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un announced plans to build an economic powerhouse.

Kim frequently used expressions such as, ‘priority to self-development,’ ‘concentration of efforts,’ ‘whole Party’, and the ‘whole state’ that placed great emphasis on economic development and improvement of people’s livelihood.

Kim said “The principle of giving priority to self-development should be maintained in building a thriving socialist country [. . .] We should concentrate all our efforts on building an economic giant to bring about a fresh turn in developing the country’s economy and improving the people’s standard of living.”

Kim also stated that “In order to achieve breakthroughs for a turning point in building an economic giant the electric-power, coal-mining and metallurgical industries and the rail transport sector should advance dynamically in the vanguard of the general offensive.” Compared to the 2015 New Year speech, this can be seen as a relative increase in the emphasis placed on the industrial sector.

In particular, he emphasized resolving the power shortages, stating that “The problem of electricity should be resolved as an undertaking involving the whole Party and the whole state.” North Korea suffers from chronic power shortages, especially fuel, as well as decline in the hydroelectric power plant operations. In 2015, interrupted power supply was exacerbated by severe drought. Kim also said that “All sectors and all units should wage a vigorous campaign to economize on electricity and make effective use of it.”

In regards to improving agriculture, livestock, and fisheries sectors, he said that “The crop farming, animal husbandry and fishing sectors should make innovations to effect a radical change in improving the people’s standard of living. The agricultural sector should actively adopt superior strains and scientific farming methods, speed up the comprehensive mechanization of the rural economy and take strict measures for each farming process, so as to carry out the cereals production plan without fail. The animal husbandry and fishing sectors, which are waging an all-out struggle in response to the Party’s call, should ramp up production as soon as possible and see to it that the fish farms, vegetable greenhouses and mushroom production bases built across the country pay off. Thus they can contribute to enriching the people’s diet.”

Kim has made several onsite inspections to facilities in the light industry sector including cosmetics and shoes factories to encourage improvement in quality and domestic made goods. According to Kim, “The light industry sector should put its factories and enterprises on a highly modern footing, provide them with plenty of raw and other materials to keep their production going full steam and increase the number of world-famous products and commodities with a competitive edge.”

He stressed that “All the sectors of the national economy should set ambitious goals and maintain regular production by tapping every possible internal reserve and potentiality. They should also take it as an important policy-oriented requirement to improve product quality, ensure domestic production of equipment and rely on locally available raw and other materials, and make strenuous efforts to this end.”

He also encouraged the launch of the work to establish full-scale the ‘our style of economic management method’: “The Cabinet and other state and economic organs should decisively improve their economic planning and guidance, . . . [and] they should be proactive in organizing and launching the work of establishing on a full scale our style of economic management method which embodies the Juche idea, thus giving full play to its advantages and vitality.”

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North Korea’s self-assessment of its economy in 2015

December 29th, 2015

Institute for Far Eastern Studies (IFES)

The Choson Sinbo, a pro-North Korea newspaper of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, released an article on December 18 that evaluated North Korea in 2015 and commended it for “achieving a remarkable leap that reached 10 years achievement in just one year.”

The newspaper commented that many monumental works had been created in 2015 that changed the country. The newspaper also introduced the recently completed constructions of Mt. Paekdu Hero Youth Power Station, multi-tier power stations on the Chongchon River, Future Science Street, Mangyongdae School Children’s Palace, Pyongyang Nursing Home, Mansudae Fountain Park, and “Mujigae” ferry on the Taedong River.

In addition, the Sonbong region in Rason City which had suffered severe flood damages in August was reported to have achieved great changes in only 30 days, turning the village into a “socialist fairyland.”

The newspaper added that “this year, Choson [North Korea] embarked on the advancement of science and technology and emphasized ideology, weapons, and technology as three pillars for constructing great and powerful socialist nation.” It also stated that “in accordance with the party’s policy to turn all people into science and technology talents, institutions, factories, enterprises, and cooperative farms across the country were equipped with over 2,000 science and technology resource rooms.”

A corn processing plant and a catfish farm were discussed as examples: “Pyongyang corn processing plant has achieved automation, and dust and bacteria-free conditions in the entire production process, from raw material to the packaging stage”; “Pyongyang Catfish Farm established the comprehensive production system that integrated intellectualization, informatization, and magnetization in the factory.”

In particular, the newspaper mentioned North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s onsite field guidance visit to the Pyongyang Catfish Farm where he emphasized the modernization of farm, noting that “the modernization of the catfish plant did not simply bring in power and technology from outside but is based on our independent technology and facilities.”

Moreover, the newspaper said, “This year, measures were devised to improve the dietary level of the people through focusing on advancing livestock, agricultural, and marine products.” It further announced that “Vegetable Science Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Science succeeded in cultivation methods of producing 300 tons per chongbo (1 chongbo = 9,917 square meters) through vigorous research that concentrated on scientification of greenhouse vegetable cultivation.”

In addition, the newspaper added that “scientification” was promoted in other sectors including education, sports, and culture.

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How North Korea Became the World’s Worst Economy

December 29th, 2015

Nicholas Eberstadt writes in the Wall Street Journal:

Economic history is a story of progress and success, but also of retrogression and failure. Among the latter cases, the most gruesome is surely the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK). Its signature catastrophe, the Great North Korean Famine of the 1990s, was, so far as can be told, the only famine in all of human history to beset an urbanized and literate society during peacetime.

Pyongyang’s descent into penury is all the more tragic considering that from the 1950s on into the 1970s, intelligence from Washington and Seoul suggested that North Korea’s per capita output was higher than South Korea’s. An array of public data—on urbanization and energy consumption, for instance—appears to corroborate that judgment. How the once-developing DPRK went from a rapid ascent into a stall, and then into a dreadful downward spiral, is a cautionary tale with implications far beyond the Korean peninsula.

The ruling Kim regime suppresses data about the country’s performance, but sufficient hard evidence has seeped out to describe both the dimensions and the causes of its continuing economic calamity. The most meaningful quantitative measure available comes from “mirror statistics” on the country’s international trade—reports by its trading partners on their purchases from and sales to the DPRK of various commodities. These data provide indirect but powerful evidence about productivity, living standards and technological attainment.

Despite a recent China-supported upswing in trade, North Korean per capita merchandise exports last year were no higher, after adjusting for inflation, than in the mid-1970s. By my calculations, real per capita imports in 2014 were barely three-fifths of what they were in 1974. That year marked North Korea’s all-time peak trade.

North Korea’s decline was a continuing drama, not precipitated by any particular geopolitical shock. Neither the end of the Soviet bloc, nor the reportedly disastrous flooding of the mid-1990s, nor a succession of international non-proliferation sanctions imposed since 2006, nor any other external event explains the country’s long-term deterioration. Instead, North Korea’s economic troubles are the natural consequence of the Kims’ dogged insistence on destructive policies.

North Korea appears to have the very worst business climate of any fully functioning nation state. On the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom compiled by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal, the DPRK earned one point out of 100, the lowest score of all 179 countries ranked. Zimbabwe, the state with the second-worst ranking that year, came in 20 points higher.

The DPRK has no rule of law; no established property rights; no possibility for private foreign trade; no reliable currency; virtually no official social and economic information; and no internal constraints whatever upon its monumentally ambitious government.

It is difficult to overstate how much this matters. At any point in the postwar era, 80% or more of the differences between countries in per capita GDP can be predicted by human resources plus business climate (i.e., institutions and policies). Statistical analysis of North Korean trade underscores the point. In 2010 the DPRK’s global trade was only 1/20th of what we would expect for a country with its estimated human resources profile. However, when business climate is considered, North Korea no longer looks like an outlier at all.

In 1970 North Korea apparently did a better job than China or Vietnam of converting human resources into economic output. But those two countries would pursue “reform socialist” policies, including freeing up agriculture, encouraging private enterprise and promoting international trade. North Korea went in the opposite direction, shifting to a permanent war-footing economy, systematically eradicating the consumer sector, and repeatedly confiscating any outstanding cash in private hands through “currency reforms.” Simply put: Any economy that embraced the same disastrous rules as the DPRK should be expected to trace out a similar trajectory of economic failure.

There is one final, and particularly bitter, piece in the puzzle: the role of foreign aid in financing and ultimately facilitating North Korea’s ruin. Mirror statistics reveal that the DPRK has never been self-supporting. To the contrary, it has relied on a perennial inflow of foreign resources to sustain itself. Since 1960, North Korea has reportedly received more than $60 billion (in today’s dollars) more merchandise from abroad than it has shipped overseas. Nearly $45 billion of that came from Beijing and Moscow—a figure we can treat as a rough approximation of total Chinese and Soviet/Russian financial support.

Why didn’t these massive transfers result in any appreciable measure of long-term economic advancement? The work of economists Craig Burnside, David Dollar and Lant Pritchett, published in the late 1990s under the aegis of the World Bank, suggests an answer: Aid can have a negative effect on growth when a recipient state has a bad business climate, because foreign subsidies allow the regime, in the short term, to escape the consequences of its misrule. In such cases, the greater the volume of aid, the bigger the harm.

Unfortunately, North Korea’s horrific economic performance was enabled in part by leaders abroad who sent billions of dollars to Pyongyang. Those resources allowed the Kim dynasty to continue policies so patently destructive that they would have been forced to cease, or at least to moderate, them absent subsidy from overseas.

International aid workers and humanitarian policy makers have always feared that foreign assistance, through cascading mishaps, might leave recipients poorer and worse off in the end. North Korea, bankrolled mainly by Moscow and Beijing, has gone further than any other modern state in turning this nightmare scenario into reality.

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How North Korea Became the World’s Worst Economy
Nicholas Eberstadt
2015-12-29

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Posted in Agriculture, Foreign aid statistics, GDP statistics, Statistics, Trade Statistics | Comments Closed

South Korean in DPRK increases in 2015

December 29th, 2015

According to Yonhap:

The number of South Koreans who visited North Korea almost quadrupled this year from a year earlier as Seoul has encouraged more civic groups to spur exchanges with the North, a government report showed Tuesday.

The number of South Koreans visiting the North reached 2,035 this year, compared with 552 a year earlier or up 269 percent from the previous year, according to a report by the Unification Ministry.

The tally did not include those who moved in and out of a joint industrial park in the North’s border city of Kaesong.

The government said in May that it will encourage more civic groups to increase their exchanges with North Korea to mark the 70th anniversary of Korea’s liberation from Japan’s 1910-45 colonial rule.

The two Koreas’ August deal to ease military tension also has given a boost to efforts to promote civilian inter-Korean exchanges.

Seoul has imposed punitive sanctions on North Korea banning massive state aid and trade since May 2010 to punish the North for sinking a South Korean warship. But it has encouraged civilians to increase humanitarian assistance to the North.

As part of the August deal, the two Koreas held reunions of families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War at Mount Kumgang in the North in late October.

In October alone, a total of 880 South Koreans visited North Korea, compared with 816 in January 2010, according to the report. The October tally was the largest monthly reading since 2009, it added.

Other major civilian exchange events included a joint project to excavate the site of Manwoldae, a Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) palace in Kaesong, and football games held between the two Koreas’ labor groups in October.

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S. Korean visitors to N.K. nearly quadruple this year: report
Yonhap
2015-12-29

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Korean-American Sharing Movement donates to the DPRK

December 28th, 2015

According to the Baptist Standard:

A Korean Texas Baptist minister delivered two tons of noodles, 10 solar panels, two diesel generators and other supplies to a hospital in North Korea between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Yoo Yoon, director of the Korean-American Sharing Movement of Dallas, also took 350 pairs of winter socks, two freezers, six pairs of tractor tires and three sewing machines to three schools for orphans in Kwangwon province.

Yoon has traveled to North Korea more than two-dozen times in the last 20 years, including four trips in 2015. He typically delivers corn and wheat noodles to schools, orphanages and hospitals. Donors have included Texas Baptist Men and several Baptist General Convention of Texas-affiliated churches, and Baylor Scott & White Health has contributed medical equipment.

In September, the North Korean government denied Yoon permission to distribute food to orphans, due to a change in policy. However, he provided food for the hospital on his most recent trip, and he brought other supplies to the medical center and the schools for orphans.

“I have learned to adjust myself to whatever circumstances through 20 years of North Korea missions,” said Yoon, former Korean field consultant with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

In September 2014, his daughter, Sara Yoon, an ophthalmologist, examined patients and consulted with doctors at the hospital in Wonsan City. On the most recent trip to North Korea, her father delivered batteries and bulbs for scopes and other equipment she purchased for the hospital’s ophthalmology department. He also distributed Christmas presents at the hospital.

“The Lord led me to tell them what Christmas is,” Yoon recalled. “So, I handed out 62 Christmas gifts to 62 people, letting them know it is a season of accepting a gift, since God sent his Son to forgive our sins.”

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Texas Baptist delivers food and equipment to North Korean hospital
Baptist Standard
Ken Camp
2015-12-28

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New figures on markets in North Korea

December 27th, 2015

By Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein

The last few months have seen quite the trickle of quantitative estimates on North Korea’s markets. A while back, South Korean intelligence said North Korea has 380 markets in total. Curtis Melvin counts them to 406. And then, a few days ago, Professor Lim Eul-chul of Kyungnam University put them at 750 (including street vendors).

It is unclear whether this is another intelligence branch or institution speaking, but what Yonhap terms “South Korea’s intelligence authorities” today claims that there are 306 markets. They also estimate that 1.8 million people use them every day, although those numbers are probably guesstimates more than anything else. Even though survey studies can say a lot about how often people use markets on average, it would seem almost impossible to weight these properly by region given the variation.

The report also includes a count of markets in each province:

By region, South Pyongan Province is home to the largest markets with 37, followed by South Hamgyong Province with 36 and North Pyongan Province with 34. North Korea’s capital of Pyongyang has 23 markets, the authorities said, without elaborating on how they obtained the information.

It is difficult to know what is meant by “markets” here: in other words, whether street markets are included or only formal ones. In any case, it isn’t particularly surprising that South Pyongan Province comes out as number one: the province has a major advantage for market trade in that it is close to Pyongyang. Traders that don’t have entry permits to Pyongyang can come and sell their goods to Pyongyang citizens who only live a relatively short bus ride away, or to other traders that will ship the goods for sale there.

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S. Korea says up to 1.8 mln N. Koreans use markets per day 
Yonhap News
2015-12-27

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Sinuiju-River Amnok Tourist Zone of DPRK opened to visitors

December 24th, 2015

Sinuiju-River-Amnok-Tourist-Zone-2015-12-24

Sinuiju-trade-zone-2015-10-cropped

I noticed the construction of this area some time ago and reported it in 38 North last month. Now the North Koreans have told us something about it. According to KCNA (December 22):

Sinuiju-River Amnok Tourist Zone of DPRK Opened to Visitors

The Sinuiju-River Amnok tourist zone in the DPRK was opened to visitors with due ceremony on Sunday.

The zone, developed in the shore of the River Amnok jointly by the Korea Myohyangsan Travel Company and the Dandong International Travel Agency of China, has modern all-round service facilities.

Present at its opening ceremony were Ri Ung Chol, deputy director-general of the State General Bureau of Tourism, and other officials concerned of the DPRK and officials concerned and tourists from China.

An inauguration address and a congratulatory speech were made at the ceremony before cutting the tape for the completion of the tourist zone.

Then its participants went round the zone.

Here is some additional information from the Yonhap (2016-1-1):

Chinese media reports said the Chinese travel agency invested 50 million yuan ($7.6 billion) to build the facilities and construction begun in April last year.

The Chinese tourists arrived at the North Korean tourism zone on Wednesday, according to Chinese media reports.

The North Korean city of Sinuiju sits just the opposite of the Chinese border city of Dandong, where about 70 percent of bilateral trade between the allies is being conducted.

About 60,000 Chinese people are estimated to travel to North Korea via Dandong a year, with another 10,000 Chinese making tours to the North a year via Hunchun, according to Chinese industry estimates.

And according to the Choson Ilbo:

North Korea has opened a riverside passport-free, visa-free zone where Chinese tourists can shop duty-free has opened on the shore of the Apnok River in Sinuiju, China News Service reported Wednesday.

Visitors can stay for a day and also enjoy North Korean food and various performances, but they will have no access to the rest of the country.

The tourism zone sits at the point where a recently completed bridge crossing the Apnok River starts. “It was developed jointly by North Korean authorities and a travel agency in Dandong,” the news agency said.

It measures 130,000 sq.m and has cost 50 million yuan since construction began in April. It contains restaurants, duty-free shops, a theater and a cruise boat terminal.

It can accommodate up to 10,000 tourists at a time and a full tour can take up to five hours.

The passport-free rule is a huge departure for North Korea, which normally confiscates the passports of Chinese day visitors until they leave.

Instead they can get a travel pass by simply presenting their ID card. It is in theory issued the same day.

“The zone is an island-like area that has been built after part of the Apnok River shore on the side of Sinuiju was reclaimed,” a source in Dandong said. “It’s impossible for Chinese tourists to enter the North Korean mainland from there because soldiers block the road to Sinuiju.”

According to NK News:

Tour operator Young Pioneer Tours (YPT) told NK News the new zone was currently open to Chinese tourists who will not require a visa to cross into the DPRK when visiting the area.
…
“The tour will cost Chinese nationals 300RMB ($46) and that includes the return trip on the boat,” YPT guide Rowan Beard said.
…
“It’s just a typical little holiday zone that the Chinese visitors would enjoy. Shopping and food,” Beard said.

See this additional post on the Sinuiju International Economic Zone.

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The Kaesong Industrial Complex and inter-Korean tensions (2015)

December 21st, 2015

UPDATE 5 (2015-12-24): Koreas reach deal on land use fee at Kaesong complex. According to Yonhap:

South and North Korea have reached an agreement on the land use fee amount for South Korean firms operating a joint industrial park across the border, the Unification Ministry announced Thursday.

The deal calls for South Korean firms at Kaesong Industrial Complex to pay US$0.64 per square meter every year, it said.

The complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong opened in 2004 as a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. A total of 124 South Korean firms are running factories with about 54,000 North Koreans working in them.

Kaesong has served as a major revenue source for the cash-strapped North, while South Korea has benefited from cheap but skilled North Korean labor.

The South’s firms were exempted from land use fees for a decade under a 2004 deal. The two sides launched talks over the issue again in late 2014.

“The government hopes that the agreement will help South Korean firms focus on their businesses in a stable manner,” said a ministry official, asking not to be named.

The North initially claimed that the South should pay $1 per square meter for all areas that were supposed to be developed under the 2004 agreement, according to an industry source.

But Seoul insisted that it will pay only around half of the North’s offered price for the land that the South’s firms are actually using. They are currently using about 25 percent of the 1 million square meter land.

“The government hopes that the two Koreas could resolve other pending issues related to the operation of the factory zone through dialogue,” the official added.

The operation of the complex has been affected by the ups and downs of inter-Korean ties. In April 2013, the North abruptly suspended the operation of the complex for about five months, citing inter-Korean tensions.

Ending a months-long wage dispute, the two sides agreed in August to raise the minimum wage for the North’s workers by 5 percent to US$73.87 per month.

UPDATE 4 (2015-12-21): North and South Korea cannot agree on land use fees. According to Yonhap:

South and North Korea have been sharply divided over how much South Korean firms operating at a joint industrial park in the North should pay for land use, government officials said Monday.

The two Koreas are in talks over the payment by 124 South Korean firms over land use fees at Kaesong Industrial Complex where about 54,000 North Koreans are working, according to the officials at the Unification Ministry.

The complex in the North’s border city of Kaesong was opened in 2004 as a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. It has served as a major revenue source for the cash-strapped North, while South Korea has utilized cheap but skilled North Korean laborers.

The South has been exempted from land use fees for a decade, but the measure is set to expire this year.

The North claims that the South should pay US$1 per square meter for the total land that was supposed to be developed under the 2004 deal, according to an industry source.

But Seoul insists that it would pay around half of the North’s offered price for only the land that the South’s firms are currently using.

“The two sides are seriously involved in talks over the matter,” said a ministry official, declining to elaborate.

On Nov. 4, North Korea denied the entry of two South Koreans to the factory park amid speculation that it may be trying to gain leverage in the talks on the land use fee.

Two days later, the North averted its ban on the entry of the two including a vice chairman of the South’s committee on the inter-Korean facilities.

Ending a months-long wage dispute, the two Koreas agreed in August to raise the minimum wage for the North’s workers by 5 percent to US$73.87 per month.

UPDATE 3 (2015-8-25): Yonhap with additional information on the agreement:

Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo said Tuesday that an inter-Korean deal struck earlier in the day marks the first time that North Korea had expressed regret over its provocations.

In the agreement, the North “expressed regret” over the recent injury of South Korean soldiers in the explosion of land mines laid by North Korea in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas.

“It is the first time that the North offered an apology and expressed regret after using the subject of North Korea (in its statement),” Hong said at the ruling Saenuri Party’s workshop.

“The biggest strength that led to this meaningful agreement was that the people stayed together,” Hong said.

The South also technically secured the North’s promise not to repeat such an attack, putting a clause into the deal that it will resume loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the DMZ if an “abnormal case” occurs.

“When North Korea did not show responsibility or demanded something unfair during the course of the dialogue and the negotiation, I mostly used a phrase that said ‘the people are watching,'” Hong said.

UPDATE 2 (2015-8-25): South Korean business community welcomes deal. According to Yonhap:

South Korea’s business community welcomed a landmark deal Tuesday on defusing inter-Korean tensions, pledging to rev up efforts to expand economic ties with North Korea.

After days of intensive high-level talks, the Koreas agreed to ease tensions sparked by Pyongyang’s landmine attack that injured two South Korean soldiers early this month.

Calling the agreement a great relief, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI), the lobby for South Korea’s family-run conglomerates, said it will push ahead with overall plans for boosting economic cooperation with North Korea

“North Korea’s latest provocations were a source of concern because they could hamper inter-Korean economic cooperation,” an FKI official said. “We are greatly relieved at the news.”

Although it’s unlikely that Seoul-Pyongyang economic cooperation will make immediate headway, the FKI will gradually go ahead with the necessary steps, including the establishment of economic offices in the capitals of both Koreas, he added.

The agreement also came as good news to South Korean firms currently doing business at the inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.

“The firms underwent a lot of troubles amid the worsened relations between the two Koreas, so (now that they have reached a deal,) we are hoping for improved business conditions down the road,” said Jeong Gi-seob, chairman of the association of 124 South Korean small and medium-sized companies operating at the zone.

The South Korean companies operate factories at the industrial park, the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, employing about 54,000 North Korean workers.

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) also promised to play its part in promoting economic relations with the North following the latest agreement.

“The business community will redouble efforts to lay the practical groundwork for the mutual development of the two Koreas,” a KCCI official said. “We also hope that a thaw in inter-Korean relations will lead to more exchange as well as the normalization of economic ties.”

UPDATE 1 (2015-8-24): The North and South Koreans have agreed to a solution to the situation. According to KCNA via Yonhap:

1. The north and the south agreed to hold talks between their authorities in Pyongyang or Seoul at an early date to improve the north-south ties and have multi-faceted dialogue and negotiations in the future.

2. The north side expressed regret over the recent mine explosion that occurred in the south side’s area of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) along the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), wounding soldiers of the south side.

3. The south side will stop all loudspeaker propaganda broadcasts along the MDL from 12:00, August 25 unless an abnormal case occurs.

4. The north side will lift the semi-war state at that time.

5. The north and the south agreed to arrange reunions of separated families and relatives from the north and the south on the occasion of the Harvest Moon Day this year and continue to hold such reunions in the future, too and to have a Red Cross working contact for it early in September.

6. The north and the south agreed to vitalize NGO exchanges in various fields.

ORIGINAL POST (2015-8-20): The two Korea’s literally just finished hammering out a new agreement on “wages” for North Korean workers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex. However, with the ink barely dried, a new round of escalating conflict between the Koreas is affecting operations at the KIC…

According to Yonhap:

South Korea said Friday it will limit the entry of its nationals into a joint industrial park in North Korea following the exchange of artillery fire between the two sides.

The Unification Ministry said it will only permit South Korean businessmen directly involved in the operation of factories at the Kaesong Industrial Park to enter the complex.

But other South Koreans, including those working at subcontractors, will not be allowed to move in and out of the complex in the North’s border city of the same name, the ministry said.

South Korea fired back at North Korea on Thursday following the North’s firing of shells at a South Korean front-line military unit in the western area of the heavily fortified border. No damage was reported.

A total of 124 South Korean small and medium-size enterprises operate factories at the industrial park, the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. About 54,000 North Koreans work there.

South Korean businessmen safely returned to the South from the complex on Thursday despite the North’s provocation.

The ministry said it has taken measures to ensure the safety of South Koreans who are temporarily staying in the North.

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S. Korea to partially ban entry into joint industrial park
Yonhap
2015-8-20

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Posted in Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), South Korea | Comments Closed

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