Foreign investment center to open for Kaesong park

A foreign investment support center for an inter-Korean industrial park will be opened this week as part of efforts to help internationalize the joint project, Seoul officials said Wednesday.

The center, to be opened on Friday and put under the administrative support agency for the Kaesong Industrial Complex, will be tasked with publicizing the industrial zone overseas and providing consultative services to prospective foreign investors, the unification ministry said.

"The support center will provide one-stop service to foreign companies wishing to establish factories in the Kaesong complex and will find would-be investors among foreign firms operating in South Korea," a ministry official said.

Reopening the joint complex in September last year after a near five-month hiatus, South and North Korea agreed to make concerted efforts to attract foreign investment that could raise its international stature and competitiveness.

The industrial zone in the North's border town of Kaesong is home to 125 South Korean companies, mostly small and medium enterprises, but no foreign companies operate there.

According to the ministry, two to three foreign companies have shown great interest in making investments in the Kaesong complex.

The industrial park, which combines the North's cheap labor with the South's capital and technology, is a fruit of Seoul-Pyongyang reconciliation that peaked in the early 2000s. (Yonhap)