By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
A Chinese company is going to be the first foreign enterprise to do business in the inter-Korean industrial park in the North Korean border city of Gaeseong, according to the Korea Land Corporation (KLC) Tuesday.
KLC officials said that Dashing Diva, the South Korean branch of Chinese artificial nail manufacturer Tianjin Jci Cosmetic, signed a contract to purchase a 6,000-square-meter lot in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex.
It marks the first time that a foreign company has bought a site in the inter-Korean joint venture, where about 15,000 North Korean workers commute to factories owned and operated by South Koreans.
While the first-phase pilot site has so far been occupied only by South Korean firms, the KLC designated a portion of land in Gaeseong for foreign businesses to boost the industrial complex’s international image and put the lots on sale in June.
Despite the South Korean government’s efforts to lure foreign investment there, no firms had come from outside the country until recently. Multinational sanitary goods maker Kimberly-Clark has also visited the complex to discuss investment there.
Located just north of the border, the Gaeseong Industrial Complex is a flagship project signifying reconciliation between the two Koreas, which remain still technically at war after a fratricidal conflict more than half a century ago.
Despite potential risks stemming from political uncertainty, the special zone has an inescapable economic logic: cheap labor and land of the North combined with the capital and technology of the South.