SEOUL: South Korea said Monday it had postponed a planned investment road show aimed at drumming up foreign interest in the Kaesong industrial zone run jointly with North Korea.
A Unification Ministry official said the move reflected a recent downturn in cross-border relations and slow progress at talks aimed at resuming full operations at Kaesong.
The investment event had been scheduled for October 31 at the Kaesong complex, which lies 10 kilometres or 6 miles inside the North Korean border.
"The delay was inevitable due to the lack of progress at talks with North Korea to enhance communication, and travel to and from Kaesong," the ministry official said.
The North was notified of the postponement last Friday, he added.
No new date for the road show has been set.
North Korea effectively shut down Kaesong when it withdrew its 53,000 workers from the complex in April, at the height of a surge in military tensions on the Korean peninsula.
As those tensions eased, Seoul and Pyongyang agreed last month to reopen the industrial park.
But relations have since soured again, with the North railing against what it sees as the South's "hostility".
It was South Korea that had pushed for encouraging foreign investment in Kaesong.
Believing the presence of overseas firms would make it harder for Pyongyang to shut down the complex in the future.
But many experts question who would be attracted by a project run by two countries that are still technically at war. (AFP)
