By Kim Bo-eun
South Korean officials visited the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in the North, Tuesday, for preparations to open a joint contact office there.
Opening the liaison office is one of the agreements in the Panmunjeom Declaration reached at the inter-Korean summit on April 27, as a means to facilitate communication and exchanges between the North and South.
Up until now, contact between the Koreas has been made through a liaison office at the truce village of Panmunjeom. When established, the joint contact office will be the first inter-Korean organization, where officials from the North and South will work in the same building.
The Koreas agreed in a high-level meeting on June 1 to open the office within the joint industrial complex in Gaeseong, which was shut down in February 2016 in response to the North's nuclear tests.
South Korean government officials and corporate staff are conducting repairs on a support center and an inter-Korean exchange cooperation office, as well as lodging facilities for staff members within the complex.
The group of 17 officials and staff members of Hyundai Asan and the Gaeseong Industrial District Foundation, who returned to Seoul on Tuesday, will visit the complex again on Wednesday.
They first visited the complex on June 8 to examine the site ― which needed repairing after being abandoned for over two years. The basement floors of the inter-Korean exchange cooperation office and lodging facilities had been flooded.
South Korea is aiming to open the liaison office within this month. A temporary office may be opened at the support center first. The government said opening the contact office is unrelated to reopening the industrial complex.
This is because economic cooperation between the Koreas cannot be resumed until sanctions on the North are lifted.
The Gaeseong complex was opened as part of agreements reached at the first inter-Korean summit in 2000.
The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) is seeking to create a special committee on inter-Korean affairs, to provide legislative assistance in economic cooperation.
“The core of inter-Korean economic cooperation is establishing transport infrastructure,” DPK floor leader Hong Young-pyo said in a meeting on the matter at the National Assembly on Tuesday.
“Concrete achievements need to be made in connecting railways, roads and gas pipes between the North and South within President Moon Jae-in's term.”
Hong added the committee will have the right to propose bills as well as manage budget affairs.