By Sam Kim
SEOUL, Jan. 6 (Yonhap) -- Despite persisting political woes, a new South Korean company has begun operating in North Korea's border industrial complex that combines superior South Korean capital and know-how with the North's cheap local labor, a government official said Thursday.

   The company, known as DSE, completed building its factory in Kaesong in early May and is therefore exempt from the investment ban on North Korea that Seoul imposed later that month over the sinking of a South Korean warship, the Unification Ministry official said.

   In May, a Seoul-led multinational investigation found Pyongyang responsible for the March 26 sinking of the Cheonan. North Korea continues to deny causing the sinking that killed 46 sailors.

   The ministry official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, said DSE began operating on Jan. 3 and is employing 160 North Korean workers, part of the 44,000 workforce in the Kaesong complex, to produce lighting apparatuses and other metallic products.

   The number of South Korean companies operating in Kaesong now stands at 122, the official added.

   The complex, which began operating in 2004, has been considered a symbol of inter-Korean detente even though the ties between the Koreas hit the lowest point in years in the last three years.

   The countries, which remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce, traded barrages of shells in November last year after the North bombarded the South Korean border island of Yeonpyeong, killing four people, including two civilians.

   South Korea has since sharply cut down on the number of its workers allowed to stay in Kaesong. The North, in an apparent act of desperation to revive its economy, has since called for lowering tension and holding cross-border dialogue. South Korean officials are demanding that the North first show "sincerity," indicating Pyongyang must apologize for the series of provocations blamed on it.

   samkim@yna.co.kr
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