China is arranging a huge foreign investment deal to revive North Korea’s faltering economy amid an international drive to coax Pyongyang back to nuclear disarmament talks, a report said yesterday.
Beijing is helping Pyongyang obtain more than US$10 billion in investment from Chinese banks and multinational companies, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.
The deal was discussed a week ago when North Korean leader Kim Jong-il met China’s senior communist party official Wang Jiarui (王家瑞), it said.
A North Korean body known as the Korea Taepung International Investment Group plans to conclude the deal next month, Yonhap said, adding that Chinese capital would account for 60 percent of total investments.
Yonhap did not give any further details on what the investment plan would involve.
It said China was brokering the deal because North Korea is demanding economic aid from Beijing along with other incentives before returning to the six-party nuclear forum which the North quit last April.
South Korean officials were not available for comment.
Chinese and North Korean nuclear negotiators held several days of talks in Beijing last week aimed at restarting the forum chaired by China since 2003.
Media reports said Pyongyang was sticking to its two conditions for coming back: a lifting of sanctions and a US commitment to discuss a formal peace treaty.
Washington, Seoul and Tokyo say the North must return unconditionally and show commitment to scrapping its nuclear program before other issues are dealt with.
Tough UN sanctions brought by the North’s pursuit of ballistic missiles and atomic weapons have hurt its economy, restricting its access to international credit.
The nation has relied on foreign aid to feed its people since it suffered a devastating famine in the 1990s.
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