Souring inter-Korean ties hurting cross-border biz: survey

SEOUL, Nov. 23 (Yonhap) -- Increasingly hostile relations between the two Koreas are negatively impacting South Korean companies operating in a cross-border complex in the North, a survey showed Sunday.

Inter-Korean relations have chilled since South Korea's conservative Lee
Myung-bak government took office in February with a vow to get tough on North
Korea. Observers speculate that current tensions could lead to the closure of the
joint complex located near the North's border town of Kaesong.
In a survey of 63 companies operating within the industrial park, 60.3 percent
said that the increasingly confrontational relations are having an "extremely
grave effect" on their business management.
Of the respondents to the poll, conducted by the Korea Federation of Small and
Medium Business, 28.6 percent said that current Korean relations are having a
"seriously" negative effect on their business.
There are currently 83 small-sized South Korean garment and other labor-intensive
plants operating at the Kaesong complex, employing about 35,000 North Korean
workers.
Some 34 percent of the companies said that chilling inter-Korean ties have become
a source of concern in setting up their business plans for 2009, while 22.9
percent were worried that orders could be canceled from a possible closure of the
complex.
Earlier in the month, South Korean Unification Minister Kim Ha-joong said he
opposes "any North Korean move to ruin confidence in the market and hinder
industrial activities of innocent private companies in Kaesong."