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Koreas sign wage accord on joint park
SEOUL, Sept. 16 (Yonhap) -- South and North Korea agreed to a 5 percent wage hike at a joint industrial park on Wednesday, the Unification Ministry here said, in the latest sign of inter-Korean projects returning to normal.
North Korea earlier demanded a 400 percent raise in monthly wages for its workers at the South Korean-run park in Kaesong, just north of the border.
South Korea's management office in Kaesong "signed an agreement on a 5 percent wage increase" with its North Korean counterpart, ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said in a brief statement.
The North voluntarily withdrew its earlier demand last week in a striking shift from its unyielding attitude in four rounds of negotiations from April to July. The demand called for monthly wages be raised to US$300 from the average $70-80, apparently in retaliation against Seoul's hard-line policy toward Pyongyang.
The Kaesong park opened in late 2004 as an outcome of the first inter-Korean summit four years earlier. It houses 114 mostly small-sized South Korean firms producing clothing, electronic equipment, kitchenware and other labor-intensive goods with about 40,000 North Korean workers.
The venture is seen as a much-needed source of dollar income for the North, which is currently under U.N. sanctions for its May nuclear test that bans cash flows to the country.
The 5 percent rate hike will increase the minimum wage to about $58 from the current $55.
Separately, North Korea was conducting a door-to-door survey on South Korean businesses at the joint park, said ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo.
North Korea asserted that the two-day survey that continues until Thursday was to examine the firms' output and "listen to their complaints and difficulties regarding tax and accounting," Lee said. Such on-site surveys have been done sporadically, she added.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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