"We're going to have a first joint venture between the two Koreas in Rason," Merry president Chung Han-Gi told AFP. The North this month upgraded the status of the zone in an attempt to invigorate anaemic foreign investment there. Chung said his company would invest 60 percent of the 7.5 million dollar cost of the new plant while its North Korean partner would put in 40 percent.
He said he would this week ask the South's unification ministry, which must authorise all cross-border contacts, to approve the joint venture. The communist state designated the Rajin-Sonbong Economic Special Zone - later renamed Rason - in 1991, its first such project. But little foreign investment materialised and senior officials who headed the project were reportedly sacked. In recent years the North has begun trying to revive it, signing an accord with Russia to rebuild railways and the port there.