North and South Korea forge ahead with industrial park project

Economic ties between North and South Korea were cemented Wednesday despite a diplomatic chill as officials from both sides opened offices to run a massive industrial park here.
The low-rise office buildings were declared open at a brief ribbon-cutting ceremony as North Korean labourers in white construction hats worked on building the massive industrial park on a windswept plain just 10 kilometres (six miles) north of the heavily fortified inter-Korean border.
Moon Chang-Seop, president of SD Trading, one of the 15 South Korean firms to be housed in the pilot project of the industrial zone, said that he was counting on cheap labour from the impoverished Stalinist state to prosper.
"I'm pinning all my hopes on this operation here. Monthly wages here are a mere 57.5 US dollars, one 20th of wages for southerners. It's about 120 dollars in China," he said.
North Korea is providing the land and the labour and South Korea the funding for the biggest single inter-Korean co-operation project that Seoul has pushed ahead with despite rising tension since 2002 over North Korea's nuclear weapons drive.
Friction between North and South has also been on the rise in recent months, notably stirred by a mass defection of more that 400 North Koreans to South Korea in July.
North Korea boycotted a round of six-party talks on the nuclear stand-off scheduled for Beijing in September, citing in part Seoul's recent revelations that its scientists had conducted secret nuclear experiments.
Though work on the Kaesong industrial park has suffered delays due to fluctuations in bilateral ties, both sides have shown determination in pushing ahead with the project.
For the past four years, South Korea has pursued economic co-operation projects including tourism and transportation with the North but the Kaesong scheme, expected to cost around four billion dollars, dwarfs the others.
A total of 257 people including 40 North Koreans and some 52 South Korean lawmakers as well as assorted officials from Hyundai Asan, the South Korean firm spearheading the project.
The new offices will carry out administrative work for the industrial zone, including issuing permits and ID cards for South Korean workers.