A group of South Korean firms that invested in an inter-Korean tour program urged the government Tuesday to resume the long-suspended project as soon as possible, as they are grappling with heavy losses.
The South has suspended the joint tour program at Mount Kumgang on the North’s east coast since July 2008 when a South Korean tourist was shot to death by a North Korean solider at the resort.
Hyundai Asan, the main operator of the tour project, reportedly invested $196 million in building facilities at the resort, which opened in 1998.
The group of 49 small contractors to Hyundai Asan said they have been reeling from a revenue deficit of more than 800 billion won ($710 million) due to the tour suspension. They invested a combined 190 billion won in the joint tour program.
“We urge the two Koreas to stop political confrontation and hold honest talks,” the Mt. Kumgang Enterpriser Association said in a statement.
“The government should resume the joint tour program and lift its sanctions against North Korea,” it added. The sanctions were imposed after the North’s torpedoing of a South Korean warship and its shelling of a border island in 2010.
The Mount Kumgang tour project, a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation, had attracted some 2 million South Korean visitors until it was put on hold, according to the group.
Pyongyang has called for the resumption of the tour program, which served as one of the few legitimate revenue sources for the cash-strapped country.
The Seoul government has said that the North should take measures to guarantee the safety of South Koreans and ensure that similar incidents do not recur.
The issue of resuming the Mount Kumgang tour program is linked to whether cash earnings from the tour project are subject to United Nations sanctions on North Korea.
Following the North’s third nuclear test in 2013, the U.N.
Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea that bans the transfer of bulk cash to the North on concerns that such money could be used to develop its nuclear and missile programs. (Yonhap)
