Pyongyang and Seoul held talks on 20 Jan 2010 on the further development of the symbolic Kaesong industrial complex.

First DPRK-ROK JV

A company from the ROK said yesterday that it is planning a joint venture (JV) plant in a free-trade zone in the northeastern part of the DPRK.

Food processor Merry Company said Pyongyang approved its partnership with state-run Korea Gaeson General Trading Corporation last month. The two companies will work together in the Rason zone, near the DPRK's border with China and Russia, to develop a food processing plant.

"We're going to have a first joint venture between the two Koreas in Rason," Merry president Chung Han-Gi told AFP.

He said he would ask the ROK's Unification Ministry to approve the venture this week.

The DPRK established the Rajin-Sonbong Economic Special Zone in 1991, its first such project. The zone was later renamed Rason.