N. Koreans workers at joint industrial complex paid $160 mln since 2004

SEOUL, Sept. 19 (Yonhap) -- South Korea has paid North Korea a total of US$160 million in wages for North Korean workers at a joint industrial complex in the communist nation since the factory park began operations in 2004, a government report showed Monday. The complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong was born out of the inter-Korean reconciliation that had boomed following the first-ever summit of the two Koreas in 2000. The complex was designed to combine cheap North Korean labor and South Korean capital and technology. Despite high cross-border tensions in recent years, the factory park has been in operation without major interruptions. Currently, more than 46,000 North Koreans work at about 120 small labor-intensive South Korean plants there. The project has been a key source of hard currency for the impoverished North, with critics claiming that it helps fund Pyongyang's ambitions for weapons of mass destruction, such as its nuclear and missile programs. According to the Unification Ministry report submitted for a parliamentary audit, the annual wages paid by South Korean companies to the North Korean workers have steadily grown to $48.6 million last year, up from $388,895 in 2004, $7 million in 2006 and $26.8 million in 2008. The hike was in line with an increase in the number of North Korean employees at the complex and the rise of the annual minimum wage by 5 percent in August of last year, the report said. The total number of North Korean employees at the industrial zone jumped to 47,630 as of June from 6,013 in 2005, the report said, while the average pay per worker climbed to $102.9 from $68.1 in the cited period.