The stalled tour to the North Korean resort of Mount Kumgang has incurred losses of more than 2 trillion won ($1.8 billion) to South Korean companies and government for the past four years, a lawmaker said Thursday.
According to Rep. Jun Byung-hun of the opposition Democratic United Party, Hyundai Asan Corp., the former operator of the tour, other related firms and a local government have suffered a combined
2.3 trillion won in losses since the tour program was suspended in July 2008 and North Korea subsequently froze assets in the resort.
Hyundai Asan lost a total of 1.4 trillion won from the suspension of the tour program, while it also led to losses of 331.8 billion won for other smaller companies.
Hyundai Asan was guaranteed exclusive operating rights by Pyongyang in the late 1990s and launched an overland tour program to Mount Kumgang in 2003. Nearly 2 million South Koreans visited the mountain resort since the tours began in 1998.
The project was halted after a South Korean female tourist was shot dead in 2008 and put on ice as the South demanded a formal apology for the incident.
The point of departure for the tour, Goseong County, some 466 kilometers east of Seoul, was also hit by the suspension, said Lee.
The local government lost 142.1 billion won and suffered a decline in the number of visitors from 6.21 million in 2007 to 4.83 million in 2011.
The state-run Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) suffered 90 billion won in losses due to the North’s asset seizure and a sales loss of 10.6 billion won. The KTO also should pay 2.24 billion won in interest on loans from the Inter-Korean Cooperation Fund, according to the lawmaker. (Yonhap News)
