Korea's North-South industrial estate booms

A South Korea-invested industrial estate in North Korea is booming despite lingering tensions between the two rivals, Seoul government statistics showed Wednesday

A South Korea-invested industrial estate in North Korea is booming despite lingering tensions between the two rivals, Seoul government statistics showed Wednesday.

The plants at Kaesong just across the border turned out products worth $36.8 million in September, a monthly record and up 38 percent from a year earlier, according to unification ministry data.

The number of North Koreans working at the zone rose to 48,242 in September, up 8.4 percent from a year earlier.

A total of 123 South Korean companies have factories at Kaesong, which combines the South's capital and the North's labour and which was the most conspicuous outcome of a historic inter-Korean summit in 2000.

It is the last major joint project still operating after the South halted tours to the Mount Kumgang resort on the east coast following the fatal shooting of a visitor in 2008.

South Korea cut most ties and imposed sanctions on the North in May 2010 after the sinking of a warship that it blamed on its neighbour. But it exempted Kaesong from the measures.

Companies at the estate produce labour-intensive goods including clothes, utensils, watches and footwear.

The estate is a lucrative source of hard currency for the North, but supporters of the project say it also serves to educate the communist state about the free-market system.

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