N. Korea seeks 'normal footing' on joint venture with the South

SEOUL, June 11 (Yonhap) -- North Korea can no longer grant favors to South Korea
while political relations remain deadlocked, and it will seek "normal footing" on
a joint industrial park by raising wages and rent fees, Pyongyang's state media
said Thursday.
In an unusually swift move, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) and other
official media organs reported on the inter-Korean talks held at the joint park
in the North's border town of Kaesong.
Inter-Korean relations "have reached the phase of catastrophe" and the joint
venture "was thrown into a serious crisis," the KCNA quoted the North Korean
delegation to the talks as saying.
North Korea has "no reason for keeping any longer the preferential measures"
while historic summit accords that gave birth to the park are "totally negated"
by the Seoul government, it said.
In the rare talks held at the joint park, Pyongyang demanded that South Korean
firms more than quadruple their average monthly wages for North Korean workers to
US$300 and guarantee an annual wage increase of 10-20 percent from the current 5
percent, Seoul officials said.
Pyongyang also asked Seoul to increase the rent for the joint park to $500
million, they said. The 50-year lease contract was set at $16 million when the
park opened in 2004, to be paid by the South Korean developers, Hyundai Asan and
the state-run Korea Land Corp.
Those demands are a "token of the sincere efforts for putting the business in the
KIZ (Kaesong Industrial Zone) on a normal footing," the KCNA said, without laying
out the numbers.
The KCNA called the demands "proposals," and said the two sides will meet again
on June 19, a possible sign that North Korea is willing to negotiate.
The talks were a follow-up to an April meeting that broke down in less than half
an hour, as the two sides could not narrow differences.
The Kaesong venture, just an hour's drive from Seoul, is the last remaining
inter-Korean economic project to come out of the historic inter-Korean summit
between then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung and North Korean leader Kim
Jong-il in 2000. The park now hosts 106 South Korean firms producing clothing,
kitchenware, electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods. More than
40,000 North Koreans work there.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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