One business among the many currently in
the Kaesong Industrial Complex [KIC] has announced it will be discontinuing its
operations due to financial difficulties.
“Yesterday, the Alamode Company in the KIC submitted its declaration of dissolution to the KIC Management Committee. [Currently] the proceedings are expected to be
carried out through the management committee,” a Ministry of Unification official stated on October 30th. “Alamode has abandoned its watch and cell
phone case manufacturing operations due to financial problems.”
As to whether or not this had any
correlation to last year’s suspended operations at the KIC due to political tensions, he responded, “The
company had already begun suffering from financial difficulties from 2012 when
its sales started to drop.”
According to the Ministry of Unification,
the actual investment amount that was put into this company according to the
2013 fiscal year standard was 1,300,000,000 KRW [1,230,606 USD] including
debts. While annual sales were about 300,000,000 KRW [283,986 USD], an unpaid
debt of 1,000,000,000 KRW [946,620 USD] still remains.
After the dissolution of the company, the
total number of companies in the KIC will drop from 125
to 124. Accordingly, the number of workers in the complex will also decrease.
While Alamode originally employed 100 workers at the KIC, only managers are
currently clocking in for work.
“The administration office [of the KIC], is currently making efforts to help the workers return to
working status,” the official stated as to how the workers’ situation is being
handled. “As this [KIC] affiliate closed its operations, we will try to
place them in positions with other businesses.”
It has also been stated that the former
workers for Alamode will be eligible to collect unemployment, the benefits of
which will be calculated based on the workers’ three-month average pay. Meanwhile, the company reportedly owes the North Korean workers nine months worth of back pay.
