This file photo, taken March 13, 2023, shows the Kaesong Industrial Complex, a joint industrial park in the North’s border city of Kaesong. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Jan. 4 (Korea Bizwire) – The unification ministry said Thursday it has decided to dissolve the foundation in charge of assisting the operation of a now-shuttered joint industrial complex in North Korea’s border city of Kaesong amid frosty inter-Korean ties.
The move came nearly eight years after South Korea shut down the industrial complex in the namesake city in protest of North Korea’s nuclear test and its long-range missile launch.
The foundation — set up in 2007 to support the operation of the factory park — has ceased to function since the shutdown of the complex.
“At a time when there is no change in North Korea’s attitude toward denuclearization, it is effectively impossible for the foundation to do its basic work of developing and assisting the operation of the complex,” a ministry official told reporters on condition of anonymity.
North Korea’s unauthorized operation of the complex also affected the government’s decision to dissolve the foundation, he said.
The ministry said last month North Korea has been running some 30 South Korean-owned factories at the complex without authorization. The number tripled from around 10 facilities in May 2023.
The factory park, once a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, was home to more than 120 small South Korean plants that produced garments and other labor-intensive goods by employing more than 54,300 North Korean workers.
In 2020, North Korea blew up the joint liaison office in the Kaesong complex in anger over South Korea’s failure to stop North Korean defectors from sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.
(Yonhap)
