From Yonhap:
Per capita production at N.K. industrial park passes $1,000 a month in August
10/1/2006
Per capita production at an industrial complex for South Korean companies in North Korea passed US$1,000 a month in August, South Korea’s Unification Ministry said Sunday.
South Korea began financing and building the complex in the North Korean border city of Kaesong in June 2003 as part of its policy of engaging the impoverished communist neighbor.
In August, total production at the Kaesong industrial complex was estimated at $6.8 million, up more than 20 percent from $5.5 million in July, the ministry said.
The Kaesong complex’s per capita production has been on a steady rise. The production was at $937 in the first quarter of this year, up from $758 in the fourth quarter of last year, $444 in the third quarter and $319 in the second quarter, it said.
Fifteen South Korean companies are now operating at the complex, located just north of the demilitarized zone that separates the two Koreas, the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee said on its Web site, without saying how many North Koreans are working there.
However, the prospects for the Kaesong complex are considered to be grim as the United States is moving to impose additional financial sanctions on the North over its alleged counterfeiting of dollars and other financial irregularities, local newspapers say.
Tensions on the Korean Peninsula have heightened as North Korea tested seven ballistic missiles in July, defying stern warnings from the U.S. and Japan.
