hankyoreh

The Kaesong Industrial Complex has reached US$3 billion, or around 3.5 trillion won, in cumulative production since its opening over ten years ago.

The South Korean Ministry of Unification announced on its website on Oct. 4 that the complex had reached a total of US$2,996,160,000 in production as of July 2015 after entering full-scale operation in 2005. With monthly production averaging US$46 million this year, the total is almost certain to have passed the US$3 billion mark sometime in August.

Yearly production at the complex stood at US$14.91 million in 2005. It passed the US$100 million mark for the first time in 2007, with a total of US$180 million.

Apart from a five-month suspension of operations in 2013, the complex has shown rapid yearly growth in production, which reached US$470 million last year. While the complex took five years to pass the cumulative US$1 billion mark in 2010, it needed only three years to reach US$2 billion in 2013, and two years after that to reach US$3 billion this year. If the US$278 million in production for the first half of 2015 is sustained in the second half, the first-ever yearly total of over US$500 million could follow.

The complex also showed stable growth with a total 10-20% higher than the year before during the months of March to May 2015, when inter-Korean tensions were high over North Korea’s unilateral demands for a minimum wage hike for its workers.

The number of tenant companies has risen from eighteen in 2005 to 124 today. The number of North Korean workers has risen roughly ninefold from an average of around 6,000 early on to over 54,000 this year.

The complex’s operations were stabilized this August when a dramatic agreement between North and South ended a conflict over Pyongyang’s calls for a minimum wage hike retroactive to March and an adjustment in social insurance premium standards. Seoul has also been demanding that the North undertake “developmental normalization” of the complex with improvements in access, communications, and customs, a more advanced wage system, and repair work to commuting routes between North and South.

“We need a complete resolution to the wage issue and improvements in inter-Korean relations as a whole for the sake of the complex’s future development,” said Shin Han-yong, vice chairperson of the Corporate Association of Gaeseong (Kaesong) Industrial Complex.

By Kim Ji-hoon, staff reporter

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