August 22, 2002
Two-way inter-Korean trade totaled $241.3 million during
the first seven months of the year, up 8.6 percent from the same period a year
earlier. South Korea imported $103.8 million worth of goods from North Korea, a
37.6 percent increase year on year, while goods valued at $137.5 million were
shipped to the North, a decline of 6.3 percent.
Major items brought in were agricultural-fishery
products, iron-steel and metal products and textiles. Northbound shipments were
chiefly chemical-industrial goods and textiles.
The 8.6 percent increase in bilateral trade in the year
to July was attributed to a 33.3 percent hike in commercial trade such as the
South's imports of fishery products and a 14.7 percent gain in transactions
based on processing-on-commission arrangements such as textiles.
Meanwhile, two-way trade in July totaled $26.4 million,
down 7.9 percent from June.
During the January-July period, South Korea registered a
$33.7 million surplus in nominal trade, while North Korea posted a $71.4 million
surplus, excluding the value of non-trade deals.
Of the total trade of $241.3 million, commercial
transactions and trade based on processing-on-commission arrangements reached
$135.8 million, accounting for 56.3 percent of the total and the rest ($105.5
million) of a non-trade nature involving inter-Korean cooperative projects and
humanitarian assistance made up 43.7 percent.
Trade under the terms of inter-Korean cooperative
projects amounted to $42.7 million, up 79.7 percent from a year ago. Major items
in this category were materials for the light-water reactor project ($33
million), those for Mt. Geumgang tourism project ($4.2 million) and others ($5.5
million).
A total of 342 companies, including 89 involved in
processing-on-commission basis, participated in the two-way trade of 470 items,
including 244 handled under the processing-on-commission
formula. |