Seoul, October 03: Trade between North and South Korea dipped more than 20 percent in the first eight months of this year due to soured relations on the divided peninsula, a lawmaker said Saturday.
Trade between the two Koreas fell 24.1 percent to $929.66 million from January to August from the same period last year, Noh Young-min, a lawmaker with the main opposition Democratic Party, said in a statement.
He said his office got the figures from the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs. The trade has declined due mainly to troubles with a joint tour program and a joint industrial park in the North, he said.
Ministry officials were not available for comment Saturday, a national holiday. South Korea has suspended tours to the scenic Diamond Mountain resort in the North since July last year, when a North Korean soldier killed a South Korean tourist near the resort after she allegedly broached a restricted military area.
The joint tour program, a key symbol of reconciliation between the two sides, was one of North Korea’s few legitimate sources of hard currency. Relations have frayed badly since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in Seoul in February 2008 with pledges to get tough on Pyongyang.
In response, North Korea suspended rapprochement talks and key cooperation projects. But North Korea said in August it would restart the tours and “energize” the operation of the joint industrial park in the North’s border city of Kaesong, though dates for resumed tours have yet to be worked out.
In an editorial Saturday, North Korea’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper called for the two sides to expand and develop their cooperation and exchanges. North Korea has made a series of conciliatory gestures to Seoul and Washington after months of provocations that included pulling out of nuclear talks, test-firing a barrage of missiles and conducting its second atomic test.
Seoul does not believe the overtures represent any fundamental changes because it says Pyongyang has shown no signs of ending its nuclear weapons program.
–Agencies