South Korea has imposed financial sanctions on three North Korean companies for a long-range rocket launch that Pyongyang conducted in April in defiance of repeated warnings by the international community, Seoul officials said Tuesday.
Under the sanctions, enforced as of June 1, the three North Korean firms are prohibited from doing any kind of business with South Korean companies and their assets in South Korea can be frozen, according to the Ministry of Strategy and Finance.
The three are Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, Tanchon Commercial Bank and Korea Ryongbong General Corporation, all of which are suspected of having ties with the North's missile and nuclear programs.
The move is meant as a follow-up to similar sanctions brought against those firms by the United Nations on April 24, in the wake of Pyongyang's long-range rocket launch on April 5. North Korea insists the launch sent a satellite into orbit, but its neighbors say it was a cover for a missile test.
No South Korean companies currently maintain business relations with any of the three North Korean firms. None of the North Korean firms hold any assets in the South, either, the ministry said.
"We decided to follow suit from June after the United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on the North Korean firms in April," a finance ministry official said. "There are no assets of theirs here and no South Korean firms doing business with them but we took the action as a precautionary measure."
This is the first time that South Korea has imposed financial sanctions on a North Korean company in relation to Pyongyang's ballistic activity, the ministry said.
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