By Lee Jin-woo
Staff Reporter
Hyundai Asan and North Korea agreed Friday to normalize the company’s tourism business to Mt. Kumgang after some 70 days of stagnation, the group’s chairwoman said.
According to Hyun Jeong-eun, chairwoman of Hyundai Group, who returned from a one-day visit to the North Korean border city of Kaesong, the two sides made the agreement to put the stalled project back to normal from next Friday.
``We agreed to improve the recent abnormal relations and reaffirm mutual trust,’’ said Hyun.
Hyundai will start inviting tourists who want to visit the mountain from Nov. 22, considering that some 10 days are normally required for the visa documentation and procedures.
Hyun also said Hyundai and the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee of North Korea, which is in charge of the inter-Korean tourism project, will hold a joint event to celebrate the seventh anniversary of the inter-Korean business venture Nov. 19 at the North’s east coast mountain resort. The project began taking South Korean tourists to there in 1998.
Hyun’s visit came after a series of disputes over the recent dismissal of Vice Chairman Kim Yoon-kyu on suspicion of misappropriating company and state funds.
The North halved the daily quota of South Korean visitors to Mt. Kumgang to 600 after the Hyundai chief dismissed Kim, a longtime close aide to late Hyundai founder Chung Ju-young. Kim had been in charge of the group’s operations in the communist country since the beginning of the tourism project.
During the rupture, Hyundai suffered an estimated loss of 10 billion won ($9.4 mil.). The North also lost some 1 billion won per month, sources said.
Hyundai expressed its wish that Friday’s meeting would usher in further negotiations for new tourism projects to Kaesong, the capital of an ancient Korean dynasty, and to Mt. Paektu, the highest mountain on Korean peninsula.
``We decided to discuss other tourism projects sometime later,’’ said Hyun. ``As Vice chairman of the Asia-Pacific Peace Committee Ri Jong-hyuk is expected to attend the anniversary ceremony, we’ll probably have a chance to talk about the issues.’’
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