South Korean businessmen remain bitter about government’s ‘empty promises’ after Kaesong complex shut down
Kaesong was home to 124 South Korean plants employing 53,000 North Korean workers who churned out products from watches to clothes
Five months after Seoul shut down a jointly run industrial park in North Korea, South Korean factory owners are still waging a defiant campaign to reopen what was the last major symbol of inter-Korean cooperation.
The shock closure of the Kaesong complex in early February forced businessmen behind the 124 South Korean plants operating there to abandon everything. What has remained is a bitter resentment towards the South Korean government over its handling of the affair, and a feeling among the owners that they and their businesses were sacrificed to political point-scoring.
For years, the government kept praising us for working on the frontier of inter-Korea cooperation and promised our business would be protected
“For years, the government kept praising us for working on the frontier of inter-Korea cooperation and promised our business would be protected regardless of politics,” said Jeong Gi-seob, CEO of a Seoul clothing firm, S&G.
“Was that just an empty promise?” said Jeong, who heads an association of the former Kaesong-based companies.
The Seoul-funded zone, born out of the “sunshine” reconciliation policy of the late 1990s, was opened in 2004 just north of the border. At its peak, Kaesong was home to 124 South Korean plants employing 53,000 North Korean workers who churned out products from watches to clothes.
For more than a decade it managed to ride the highly volatile swings in North-South relations, but that all came crashing down in February when Seoul announced the shutdown in response to the North’s fourth nuclear test a month earlier.
