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Workers, sales still coming in at usual rates
North Korea's recent launch of a series of missiles on July 5 local time has had little effect on day-to-day operations at the Gaeseong (Kaesong) industrial park, according to Kim Dong-geun, head of the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee. Speaking to the Hankyoreh in Gaeseong last Friday, Kim said he does not feel anything has changed in the special industrial zone in North Korea set aside for investment by South Korean companies.
"It seems like it is more people in the South who are concerned" about the potential effects of the missile firing, Kim said.
"South Korean authorities are determined" to make the zone work, he said.
Kim said one of his main counterparts in the North told him late last July that he is "ready to push ahead" with the Gaeseong project, and that he sees that statement as an expression of the North's official position. "The North knows that Southern companies are worried, and probably decided it would be good to say something about the matter when they noticed that companies were getting a flurry of telephone calls" [following the missile launch], he said.
One would think North Korean workers might be concerned about recent developments involving their country in the international community. Kim says that after the recent United Nations Security Council resolution on Pyongyang's missile launch, North Korean employees of South Korean companies asked him how it would influence Gaeseong. But, he said, "workers have no reason not to show up when all plant operations are running normally, and there has been no increase in worker absence," he said. He notes that the South Korean company Shinwon hired 238 new local employees on August 3 and intends to hire 230 more in September. There have been no major fluctuations in orders from overseas buyers. "Buyers are expressing concern," he said, but said that companies say they are not having trouble maintaining a consistent order rate. For example, he said, the shoemaker Samdeok has seen an increase in orders since the missile firing. Exports of Gaeseong products are on the rise, and Kim expects there to have been an increase from 1.62 million USD in June to 1.95 million in July when the numbers are finally counted. One noticeable change, however, has been that North Korean officials are scrutinizing the paperwork of South Koreans who visit Gaeseong and have no regular business there. But according to Kim, officials are allowing the entry of personnel necessary for operations there. He said he knows nothing about recent flood damage in North Korea. "Officials told me that Pyeongan, Jagang, and Hwanghae provinces suffered the worst," he said. But the industrial park has good drainage, so it suffered no damage, he said.
