Trade and business ties between North and South Korea have experienced little fallout from the rivals' military clash in June, their worst in three years.
South Korea had one of its frigates sunk, and at least four sailors killed, with the North losing an unknown number of men in the shootout between the two countries' navies over a disputed sea border.
The clash soured opinion in South Korea and prompted Seoul to freeze plans to send experts to Pyongyang to help set up a mobile phone network in the North's capital.
But businessmen and officials say trade between the two has hardly been affected.
"Our businessmen visited North Korea even after the clash," said Park Kyung-suk, a South Korean Unification Ministry official who monitors inter-Korean economic relations.
"Newcomers seem to wait and see if the situation gets better, but the old hands are still visiting North Korea," he said.
After falling slightly last year, trade between the two Koreas rose 8.9 percent to US$215 million in the first half of 2002 on the year, South Korean government figures show.
This is just half a day's exports for powerhouse South Korea, but represents a significant flow of hard currency for North Korea -- a communist-lead country where drought and economic mismanagement mean many of its 22 million people go hungry.
Dubbed by Washington as part of an international "axis of evil," North Korea has few friends and a steady trickle of residents flee poverty and politics across its border to China.
South Korea's economy is about 27 times as big as the North's, which grew 3.7 percent in 2001 on massive aid inflows to address the food shortage.
The clash over the maritime border, set at the end of the 1950-1953 Korean War but no longer observed by the North, had no lasting effect on container traffic between the two Koreas, the South's unification ministry said.
Nineteen South Korean firms began trade with North Korea in June, raising to 214 the number of companies operating business projects in North Korea, it said.
CSBC Corp, Taiwan (台灣國際造船) yesterday released the first video documenting the submerged sea trials of Taiwan’s indigenous defense submarine prototype, the Hai Kun (海鯤), or Narwhal, showing underwater navigation and the launch of countermeasures. The footage shows the vessel’s first dive, steering and control system tests, and the raising and lowering of the periscope and antenna masts. It offered a rare look at the progress in the submarine’s sea acceptance tests. The Hai Kun carried out its first shallow-water diving trial late last month and has since completed four submerged tests, CSBC said. The newly released video compiles images recorded from Jan. 29 to
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to make advanced 3-nanometer chips in Japan, stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing roadmap in the country in a triumph for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s technology ambitions. TSMC is to adopt cutting-edge technology for its second wafer fab in Kumamoto, company chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said yesterday. That is an upgrade from an original blueprint to produce 7-nanometer chips by late next year, people familiar with the matter said. TSMC began mass production at its first plant in Japan’s Kumamoto in late 2024. Its second fab, which is still under construction, was originally focused on
DETERRENCE EFFORTS: Washington and partners hope demonstrations of force would convince Beijing that military action against Taiwan would carry high costs The US is considering using HMAS Stirling in Western Australia as a forward base to strengthen its naval posture in a potential conflict with China, particularly over Taiwan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. As part of its Indo-Pacific strategy, Washington plans to deploy up to four nuclear-powered submarines at Stirling starting in 2027, providing a base near potential hot spots such as Taiwan and the South China Sea. The move also aims to enhance military integration with Pacific allies under the Australia-UK-US trilateral security partnership, the report said. Currently, US submarines operate from Guam, but the island could
EMERGING FIELDS: The Chinese president said that the two countries would explore cooperation in green technology, the digital economy and artificial intelligence Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday called for an “equal and orderly multipolar world” in the face of “unilateral bullying,” in an apparent jab at the US. Xi was speaking during talks in Beijing with Uruguayan President Yamandu Orsi, the first South American leader to visit China since US special forces captured then-Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro last month — an operation that Beijing condemned as a violation of sovereignty. Orsi follows a slew of leaders to have visited China seeking to boost ties with the world’s second-largest economy to hedge against US President Donald Trump’s increasingly unpredictable administration. “The international situation is fraught
RSS