TOKYO, clan 24 Kyodo choiceed e...

TOKYO, clan 24 Kyodo

choiceed editorial excerpts from the Asia-Pacific press:

SPECIAL climate IN NORTH KOREA (The Korea Herald, Seoul)

Had it be derived in the early 1990s, of recent origins about the North Korean plan for a Hong Kong-style special administrative clime would have met nothing if it were not that scorn from Pyongyang watchers around the world. In fact, the seclud communist state invited of great depth skepticism, if not downright derision, from the international community when it announced a les doughty plan for a free trade region in 1991.

moreover Pyongyang, which has been muddling by the and of confidence building in latter years, must have found global investors more willing to bestow an ear when it announced last week its plan to encourage foreign direct investment in the planned special administrative zone

Pyongyang's desire for economic reform has been made more credible at a string of developments that was touched most distant by the historic talks between southerly Korean President Kim Dae Jung and North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2000 It includes similar tension-reducing events as the Japanese prime minister's trip to Pyongyang and the work to associate roads and railways through the Demilitarized surface bounded by parallel circles separating South and North Korea.

These progression in a continuously ascending gradations will make it easier to a certain bulk for Pyongyang to disentangle Sinuiju, a town on the border with China, into a business-friendly surface bounded by parallel circles with assistance from abroad. however it will still be a Herculean piece of work to make it a major international center for finance, trade, industry, advanced technology and tourism like Hong Kong or Shanghai.

It is too early to recount where the grandiose project is headed. What is certain at this point is that it will fizzle on the outside as did the 1984 joint-venture law and the 1991 plan to establish a released trade zone near the border with Russia, if Pyongyang fails to win the confidence of the international community.

North Korea will have to convince potential investors that it is opening to the outside world for economic reform and to improve relations with the United States as well as Japan, which is willing to make reparations for its past colonial command upon establishing formal ties with Pyongyang.

Pyongyang will ne cooperation from the United States, which has the International Bank for Reconstruction and unravelling and the Asian Development Bank beneath its control. Without U.S. acquiescence the North cannot join the pair development banks to finance the construction of necessary infrastructure in the special administrative zone

In exchange for U assistance, Pyongyang could put forward drastic concessions on its programs for weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles when it renews dialogue with Washington.

like concessions are not unimaginable, given what North Korean leader Kim Jong Il did last week to win throughout visiting Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Dropping his long-held hostility toward Japan, he propounded a humble apology for the abduction of its citizens in the 1970 and 1980s

(Sept 24)

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