hankyoreh

President of Shangdi Guanqun Investment Co., Ltd, a Chinese state-run company, Mi Chang, center, inspects a factory of Seungli Chemistry in North Korea’s Rason free trade zone, North Hamgyong Province, Dec. 2010.

Shangdi Guanqun Investment agreed to invest $2 billion in North Korea’s Rason free trade zone and Musan Iron Ore mines, estimated to hold reserves of more than seven billion tonnes, and signed a memorandum of understanding with Pyongyang’s Investment and Development Group on Dec. 20 in Beijing.

An official of the company told the Hankyoreh that the company’s president Mi would visit Pyongyang to make a contract to invest and build development facilities and coal-fire power plant to produce three million tons of iron ore per year.

Although South Korea’s steel conglomerate Posco also agreed to develop Musan Iron Ore mines and bring in iron ore from the mine with North Korea in 2009, the project has been adjourned by South Korean government’s ban on economic cooperation and contacts with North Korea on May 25, 2010 as a countermeasure against North Korea after the sinking of the Cheonan.

Lots of South Korean companies have worried that Chinese companies could sweep ample natural resources of North Korea while they have been prohibited from contact with North Korean partners.

(Photo courtesy of Shangdi Guanqun Investment, Story by Park Min-hee)