Sunday, June 21, 2009

Bilateral trade: Trade between the two Koreas on the decline

FOCUS Information Agency - Trade between the divided Koreas has fallen for the ninth straight month year-on-year, the customs office here said Sunday, as cross-border economic exchanges are threatened by boiling tension on the peninsula, Yonhap news agency revealed.

According to the South's Korea Customs Service, the volume of trade between the Koreas reached USD 106.5 million in May, a fall of 38 percent from USD 171.9 million in the same month of last year.The May figure represented the ninth consecutive monthly on-year decrease in inter-Korean trade since September last year.

The decline reflected a downturn in inter-Korean ties that have soured since President Lee Myung-bak took office in February last year with a pledge to link the denuclearization of North Korea to the North-bound aid shipments.

Calling Lee "a traitor," Pyongyang has threatened armed conflicts along the border and imposed stricter regulations on South Koreans working at a joint industrial complex in the North Korean border town of Kaesong.

The complex is one of the last remaining symbols of inter-Korean reconciliation that grew from the 2000 summit between the Koreas, which still remain technically at war after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in a truce.A South Korean company has recently pulled out of the borderline factory park, while a South Korean worker has been detained by North Korea on charges of defaming its leadership since March.Further raising tension, North Korea fired a series of long- and short-range missiles this year and conducted its second nuclear test in late May.The provocative moves have prompted the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution tightening sanctions on the isolated communist regime.
Published by Mike Hitchen, Mike Hitchen Consulting
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