ID :
187635
Fri, 06/10/2011 - 07:15
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Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/187635
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N. Korea, China embark on repairing key logistics road
By Kim Kwang-tae
SEOUL, June 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea and China held a ceremony to repair a key logistics road along their shared border, the latest sign of boosting economic cooperation between the two neighbors.
The move to repair the road that links the Chinese city of Hunchun to the North Korean port of Rajin comes three years after Beijing secured the right to use the port that provides China with an export route to other countries.
China is apparently seeking to turn the port near a North Korean free economic zone known as Rason into an international logistics hub.
Some 200 officials from the two sides, including Jang Song-thaek, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law, and Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, watched the ceremony in Rason on Thursday to reconstruct the road and to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for a cement factory.
The North designated Rason as a special economic zone in 1991 and has since striven to develop it into a regional transportation hub near China and Russia, but no major progress has been made.
The Rason zone "has favorable conditions for emerging as a world trade and investment hub connecting Northeast Asia with Europe and North America," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency quoted Jang and Chen as saying in the ceremony.
The move came days after Pyongyang said it will turn the Hwanggumphyong and Wihwa islands into an economic zone to boost friendly ties with China, and expand and develop external economic relations.
The two islands that sit at the estuary of the Yalu River have long been tapped as a joint economic development zone between North Korea and China.
The latest move came on the heels of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's weeklong trip to China in May to study the neighboring country's spectacular economic development, his third trip to China in just over a year.
Beijing has been trying to lure its impoverished ally to embrace the reform that lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty and helped Beijing become the world's second-largest economy.
(END)
SEOUL, June 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea and China held a ceremony to repair a key logistics road along their shared border, the latest sign of boosting economic cooperation between the two neighbors.
The move to repair the road that links the Chinese city of Hunchun to the North Korean port of Rajin comes three years after Beijing secured the right to use the port that provides China with an export route to other countries.
China is apparently seeking to turn the port near a North Korean free economic zone known as Rason into an international logistics hub.
Some 200 officials from the two sides, including Jang Song-thaek, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's brother-in-law, and Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming, watched the ceremony in Rason on Thursday to reconstruct the road and to hold a groundbreaking ceremony for a cement factory.
The North designated Rason as a special economic zone in 1991 and has since striven to develop it into a regional transportation hub near China and Russia, but no major progress has been made.
The Rason zone "has favorable conditions for emerging as a world trade and investment hub connecting Northeast Asia with Europe and North America," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency quoted Jang and Chen as saying in the ceremony.
The move came days after Pyongyang said it will turn the Hwanggumphyong and Wihwa islands into an economic zone to boost friendly ties with China, and expand and develop external economic relations.
The two islands that sit at the estuary of the Yalu River have long been tapped as a joint economic development zone between North Korea and China.
The latest move came on the heels of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il's weeklong trip to China in May to study the neighboring country's spectacular economic development, his third trip to China in just over a year.
Beijing has been trying to lure its impoverished ally to embrace the reform that lifted millions of Chinese out of poverty and helped Beijing become the world's second-largest economy.
(END)
