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...Koreans. Lee Im Dong, general manager of the Kaesong Industrial Council, says hundreds of other companies plan to set up plants there when a second phase opens in early 2010. A rush is anticipated in part because, at the October summit between Roh and Kim, the North agreed to key improvements in how Kaesong operates, including swifter customs clearance for goods crossing its border, and better computer and cell-phone communications connections between Seoul and Kaesong factories. The moves were greeted by businessmen as "a signal that [North Korean leaders] really want more investment, and are willing...
...December, and despite the problems in the North, Wonjin Worldwide now wants to invest more, says Yoon Byung Roh, the company's president. Like other mining-company executives, Yoon knows that North Korea and China between them have roughly 80% of the world's supply of another key mineral used in producing iron, steel and other basic industrial products: magnesite, which Yoon's company refines into magnesium...
...investment Yoon seeks is precisely what the Roh administration has been pushing in its last months in office. Among its key initiatives are capital infusions geared toward improving transportation links between the North and South, adding to the $700 million the South has already spent on North Korea infrastructure projects over the past eight years. The projects are starting to bear fruit. On Dec. 11 a regular rail-freight service was inaugurated between Seoul and Kaesong, punching a symbolic hole in the heavily fortified DMZ that divides the countries. Work is also underway to repair a rail line linking Kaesong...
...Iran isn't even bothering to hide its imperial grasp. Or that oil is the key to the Gulf's heart. A contact in a major U.S. oil company told me that Iraq's Shi'a-led oil ministry has been soliciting the company's interest in a couple of Iraqi fields. When the company finally took the bait, the Iraqis coyly suggested that the company might want to first pass through Tehran to get an Iranian green light. It was the only way for the U.S. major to secure an Iraqi property. The company of course declined the invitation...
...fact, many Iraqis are also convinced Iran is the key player in Iraqi oil. In December, Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization sent a letter to a South Korean firm threatening to halt its crude oil allocation unless South Korean companies halt oil investment in the Kurdish regions of Iraq. The Kurds claim that Iran was behind the letter - just as they maintain that Iran is holding up an Iraqi oil law that would allow the Kurds to open their region to foreign investment. As far as the Kurds are concerned, Iran intends to monopolize every drop of oil exported...