Kim was the first South Korean businessmen to make an inroad into the joint inter-Korean industrial complex in the North Korea's western border city of Kaesong.
Kim set up his factory in Kaesong in late 2004 to produce kitchenware and hired some 350 North Korean workers.
The sprawling complex, a key outcome of the inter-Korean summit in 2000, marries South Korean capital and technology with cheap labor from the North. It is now home to more than 120 South Korea's small and medium-sized companies.
Cooking pots made in the North were brought to South Korea for sale in late 2004, where they made headlines and quickly sold out in a major department store. The kitchenware was later exported to Mexico and Germany also.
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A pre-dawn fire on Christmas Eve, 2010, destroyed half of Sonoko Cuisineware's factory in the Northern economic enclave, costing Kim about 2 billion won (US$1.7 million).
The fire began in a shipping container in the factory's compound after North Korean workers did not switch off an electric pad and electric heater the previous day, Kim said.
He said the South Korean authorities had inadequate fire fighting measures for the South Korean factories in the complex.
"Firefighters came to the scene more than 40 minutes after the fire tore through the factory," Kim told Yonhap News Agency by phone from his office in Ilsan, west of Seoul.
He said a fire engine and water wagon came from a fire station just 300 meters away, though the water wagon held so little water it had to return to the station to refill before coming back to the scene.
The blaze completely destroyed machines and other equipment in the factory, bringing the operation to a halt for more than a year.
"All of my North Korean employees are working for other South Korean factories in the complex as I could not pay them wages," Kim said. He added that four of his eight South Korean workers had either quit or taken leaves of absence.
Kim said he has yet to recover from the devastating damage due to financial constraints.
He sent official documents to former and then current unification ministers on four occasions between April and October of last year to try to secure financial assistance to resume operations, but was only told to "wait."
Out of frustration, he posted his latest appeal on the Web site of the Unification Ministry, which handles inter-Korea affairs.
"I'm in deathly agony and I can not sleep," he said. In a worst-case scenario, he said, he may file a suit against the government over the issue.
Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Hyung-suk indicated the government can not give special favors to the kitchenware manufacturer, saying it needs to exercise fairness in its handling of the more than 120 South Korean companies in the complex.
Despite lingering tensions on the Korean Peninsula, the two Koreas have kept intact the shared complex that serves as a key legitimate cash cow for North Korea.
entropy@yna.co.kr
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