In 2016, the KIC(Kaesong Industrial Complex Foundation) was suspended by the South Korean government and the Kaesong Industrial Complex remains closed.
The KIC was the first joint venture by South Korea and North Korea and it was designed to move beyond the division towards a peaceful cooperation.
Dr Jinhyang Kim, President of the Kaesong Industrial Complex Foundation who has been invited to the Distinguished Speakers Series for Korean Studies in Melbourne University said to SBS Korean that it was an “Economic cooperation for peace”.
He said that KIC was the miracle space where small examples of peace and unification had been expressed.
Dr Kim stressed that it had been successfully operating for 12 years and created enormous economic value as well.
“It started as an economy for peace, but in fact, peace for the economy was perfectly established as well”
In December 2004 when products were first produced at KIC, the labour cost for basic wage was only $50 per month according to Dr Kim.
He expressed opposition to the claim that the KIC is funnelling money to North Korea, stressing that it should be pumped from the North, not to be pumped from the South.
“If you can hire one foreign worker in South Korea, you can employ 13 to 15 North Korean workers in the KIC."
Dr Kim believed the South Korea and the North Korea would achieve peace and economic prosperity through economic cooperation and expressed the economic, social and cultural effects of this Peace Economy would be tremendous.
Dr Jinhyang Kim, President of the KIC has been invited to the Distinguished Speakers Series for Korean Studies in Melbourne University. Source: SBS Korean
He agreed that it would be important to foster public opinion on the international community in order to reopen the KIC.
The stalemated US-North Korea nuclear negotiations is one factor that blocks the economic cooperation but the Korean's good-intention willingness should be communicated at first, He said.
Dr. Kim, who said he was visiting the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.N. Security Council to persuade them of the need to reopen the KIC, said that what matters most is the good-intention willingness of the Korean people.
Kim said the KIC was made for peace and the wages paid to North Korean workers were not diverted to the funds for weapons of mass destruction.
Dr. Kim, who plans to visit the United Nations Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea, stressed that the KIC is a space created for peace, and therefore the KIC is in line with the purpose of the UNSC sanctions.
“Sanctions are not the goal in themselves, but for the realization of peace on the Korean Peninsula. In that sense, there is no more real peace places than the KIC”
Dr Jinhyang Kim, President of the KIC has been invited to the Distinguished Speakers Series for Korean Studies in Melbourne University. Source: SBS Korean
