SEOUL Nov. 2 Kyodo southward and ...

SEOUL Nov. 2 Kyodo

southward and North Korean officials agreed Saturday to perform the operations indicated in part of an industrial tangle in the North Korean city of Kaesong, just north of the demilitarized clime by the end of nearest year, according to southerly Korean news pool reports from Pyongyang.

The agreement was reached at the extreme point of four-day bilateral working-level talks held in Pyongyang.

According to the agreement, southern Korea will fully cooperate in supplying electric power, communications and water to the 3.3-million-square-meter allotment as the first phase of building the industrial complex

The unfolding work of the first phase will start nearest month, the reports said.

If everything goe as planned, southern Korean firms will set up their plants in the complicated as early as the close of next year, the reports said.

In September, North Korea announced it has named Sinuiju, a northwestern city bordering with China, as a special administrative baldric to attract foreign investment.

However, Yang Bin, a Chinese-born Dutch businessman named to head the free-trade band was detained by Chinese authorities in early October.

Meanwhile, separate working-level talks between the pair Koreas also held in Pyongyang to discuss joint measures to preclude flooding around the Imjin River flowing by means of the two Koreas failed to make any agreement.

The sum of two units sides agreed to hold the nearest round of such talks in Seoul in January nearest year.

The inter-Korean talks forward the industrial complex and deluge prevention were held to implement what the sum of two units Koreas had agreed in their high-level talks to help economic cooperation and bilateral reconciliation.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo of the present days International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group