S. Korean advance team heads to joint park for talks with North

By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, June 30 (Yonhap) -- A South Korean advance team traveled to North Korea on
Tuesday to prepare for a third round of talks over a troubled joint industrial
park amid growing signs of financial strain on the businesses there.
The talks on Thursday will center on North Korea's demands to raise wages and
rent at the industrial park in its border town of Kaesong. Seoul officials have
rejected the demands, with South Korean firms at the park pressured by a sharp
sales decrease and some forced to temporarily close their factories.
A four-member advance team from the Unification Ministry left for the Kaesong
park in the morning to arrange the schedule of the talks and prepare meeting
facilities, ministry officials said.
Seoul's major agenda is the case of a detained Hyundai Asan Corp. employee. The
engineer in his 40s, whom the company would only identify by his family name Yu,
was taken into custody at the joint park in March for "slandering" the North's
political system and trying to incite a local female employee to defect. North
Korea has refused access to him, only saying he is "doing well with no problem"
and that an investigation was underway.
"Our position remains the same that our detained worker should be a priority to
be resolved in the next talks," ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a
briefing on Monday.
Officials said South Korea will repeat its rejection of North Korea's demands
over rent and wage hikes.
In the first round of talks on June 11, North Korea demanded a four-fold monthly
wage increase to US$300 for local workers at the joint park. It also sought to
raise the rent for 50-year development rights to $500 million from the $16
million, which was paid by South Korean developers when the park opened in 2004.
In the second round held eight days later, North Korea insisted on its initial
offer, but showed some flexibility, proposing to lift a traffic curfew it imposed
along the inter-Korean border in December to protest Seoul's hardline policy
toward Pyongyang.
Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said Seoul believes North Korea wants to keep
the joint park running.
"We head to the talks with an understanding that North Korea does not intend to
quit the Kaesong industrial complex," Hyun said in a briefing to lawmakers on
Monday. "We will try to explain to North Korea fully that the businesses must
make profits" if the business park is to continue.
A fur coat maker, Skin Net, withdrew from the park early this month, citing a
decrease of buyer orders and security concerns. Officials said another company
has temporarily suspended operation in Kaesong for the same reasons, and a few
others were also reportedly considering temporary closure.
The industrial park is the last remaining inter-Korean venture, after tourism
programs were all suspended last year amid a political standoff. More than 100
companies operate at the North Korean park, producing clothing, kitchenware,
electronic equipment and other labor-intensive goods with about 40,000 North
Korean workers.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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