[Editorial] Putting Gaeseong To Work : English Editorials : Internet Hankyoreh

The Gaeseong Industrial Complex's two contractors, the state-run Korean Land Corporation and Hyundai Asan, signed a land lease with North Korea for the area yesterday, a move slow in coming that places the project back on course. The two companies will begin selling parcels of the preliminary site in May or June, and lot sales on the complex area will begin in the second half of the year.

Economic cooperation between North and South Korea has so far been about simple trade or processing. The Gaeseong project has been the subject of so much hope because it would mean bringing the investment and cooperation to the next level. The reason the project has seen such slow progress despite expectations is because of air around the Korean peninsula has agitated with issues such as the North's nuclear programs, and because of wrangling over lease conditions. In the end each side has agreed to pay US$16 million for the preliminary lease of 1 million pyeong of land and for the cost of the initial cleanup, meaning the W150,000 per pyeong price hoped for from the beginning might work out as planned. Space at that price an hour from Seoul would certainly make things competitive. Cheap labor using the same language also becomes available, and when the rail link between Seoul and Sinuiju is complete, logistics will become much easier as well.

Many favorable conditions wait at what will be the Gaeseong Industrial Complex. One shortcut to putting those conditions to work and making a successful model out of intra-Korean economic cooperation will be for North and South to reduce the extra-economical causes of insecurity and lessen reasons behind investment uncertainties. There of course needs to be work to resolve the North Korean nuclear issue peacefully, and there also needs to be structural provisions that would allow companies to invest with peace of mind. The effort should begin with careful selection of sound companies for participation in the preliminary zone, so that the enterprise is successful.

In the course of construction at Gaeseong and other areas of intra-Korean economic cooperation, the government must be especially careful to pursue the relationship while simultaneously pushing for resolution of the nuclear issue, yet without linking the two. Preferably, advances in economic cooperation will lead to an accumulation of deep trust between each side, and become a means for dealing with the political and military conflict.

The Hankyoreh, 14 April 2004.

[Translations by Seoul Selection. (PMS)]