China to Invest $3 Billion in N.Korea's Special Economic Zone

[Justin]

   

   

Quote:North Korea and China finally reached an agreement at the end of last year to jointly develop the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone in the far northeastern edge of the isolated country, it emerged on Wednesday.

The zone is seven times larger than the Kaesong Industrial Complex (65.7 sq.km), the site of inter-Korean economic cooperation.

The agreement entitles China to develop three new piers and grants it the right to use them for 50 years. According to the source in China's Jilin Province, the deal was inked in the second half of last year.

The ground-breaking ceremony for the development project was held last June with North Korea's Jang Song-taek, vice chairman of the National Defense Commission, and China's Commerce Minister Chen Deming in attendance. But as the two sides disagreed over certain legal details of the investment, the agreement was not finalized until the end of last year, the source said.

China will reportedly invest US$3 billion to build infrastructure there such as railroads, power plants and other facilities by 2020.

"It is uncertain just how much Chinese companies will be interested in the special economic zone at this moment due to the poor infrastructure there," said Yoon Seung-hyun, a professor at China's Yanbian University.

"However, once construction begins following an influx of Chinese investment, investors from Hong Kong will probably head there in search of cheap labor."

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[Justin]

   

    in separate news. china recently sent a great deal of food aid to north korea

LONG convoys of Chinese trucks laden with rice have been seen entering North Korea after Beijing reportedly agreed to provide major food aid to Pyongyang's new regime, a South Korean activist said.

Thousands of trucks delivered rice to the hungry North ,starting on January 9, said Do Hee-Yoon of the Seoul-based Citizens' Coalition for Human Rights of Abductees and North Korean Refugees.

A Japanese newspaper said Chinese leaders had agreed on the aid at a meeting on December 20, the day after North Korea announced the death of its longtime leader Kim Jong-Il.

The deliveries lasted about 10 days before the Lunar New Year holiday on January 23, Do told AFP.

As evidence, he presented pictures taken near the customs office in the northeastern town of Tumen on the Chinese side of the border on January 12.

One photo, taken from inside a taxi, showed trucks stacked with rice bags lined up on both sides of the road.

"Trucks laden with rice sacks were seen crossing the border into the North at various places including Tumen, Dandong and Jian,'' Do said.

"The delivery of rice aid was apparently completed within a pretty short timespan," he said, adding it was quite rare for China to provide the North with such massive food aid at one go.

China's foreign ministry urged the international community to give its impoverished neighbour more humanitarian aid.

It did not comment on a report by Japan's Tokyo Shimbun newspaper that China had decided to donate 500,000 tonnes of food and 250,000 tonnes of crude oil.

The paper said senior Chinese officials made the decision at a meeting chaired by President Hu Jintao, in a gesture of support for the new regime headed by Kim's youngest son Jong-Un.

South Korea's government stopped its own annual major food and fertiliser shipments to the North in 2008 after ties worsened between Pyongyang and a new conservative administration in Seoul.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/n...6258485916

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