ROK to offer emergency funds to Kaesong companies

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea (ROK) planned to offer emergency funds to companies that halted operations at the Kaesong Industrial Complex as part of efforts to help them solve their immediate liquidity problems, the unification ministry said Thursday.

The government decided to provide 300 billion won ($273 million) in emergency operating funds to the 123 ROK's companies at the Kaesong industrial park, according to the Ministry of Unification.

The fund size was the maximum amount of money that can be made available by the government at the current stage, the ministry said.

The fund consisted of 63 billion won in the inter-Korean cooperation fund, 100 billion won in small and medium enterprise promotion fund, 100 billion won in the Korea Finance Corporation funds and 36.9 billion won in the technology credit guarantee funds.

The ministry said three banks are in the process of offering loans to the Kaesong companies, citing the loans of 100 billion won from Woori Bank, 100 billion won from Industrial Bank of Korea and 300 billion won from Export-Import Bank of Korea.

In addition, the government planned to push for the loan assistance worth 300 billion won arising from the inter-Korean economic cooperation insurance program, while pushing to include 100 billion won in the extra budget to support the businesses at Kaesong.

The liquidity assistance came after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) banned their 53,000 workers from reporting to work on April 9 at its border town of Kaesong. The ban led to the suspension of operations by the 123 South Korean companies with factories there.

After Pyongyang rejected Seoul's dialogue offer to solve the deadlock at Kaesong last Friday, the South Korean government decided to withdraw all their workers from the joint industrial park, the last remaining symbol of the inter-Korean cooperation.