Seoul:
South Korea's government will provide more than $270 million in emergency loans to help companies affected by the shutdown of a jointly-run factory park in North Korea.
The finance ministry said Thursday the 300 billion won ($273 million) in relief funds will help cover debts and operating costs of around 120 South Korean companies that were forced early last month to halt production at factories in the Kaesong industrial complex amid high tensions on the Korean peninsula.
Pyongyang has blocked the entry of South Korean vehicles and personnel to the jointly-run factory park since April 3. The move came as North Korea issued a daily torrent of threats aimed at U.S.-South Korean military drills and U.N. sanctions over Pyongyang's February nuclear test.
Six days later, it pulled out its 53,000 North Korean workers, halting the factories that had run on cheap labor from North Korea and capital and technology from the South.
The shutdown of production at Kaesong, which remained in business even during North Korea's attack on a South Korean island in 2010, was the first since it opened in 2004 as a test case for reunification.
When other inter-Korean projects were suspended, Kaesong remained as the last symbol of inter-Korean cooperation providing a small channel of exchange between the divided Koreas.
Last week, South Korea's government asked the remaining South Korean workers in Kaesong to return to the South after Pyongyang rebuffed a demand for talks on Kaesong.
Seven South Koreans still remain in the Kaesong complex as of Thursday for negotiations over unpaid wages to North Korean workers. It is not clear when those talks will end.