SEOUL, Oct 26: A high-powered North Korean delegation on Saturday began a nine-day inspection of the dynamic economy of the capitalist South as the North engages in a drive to rescue its economy.

The 18-member delegation, headed by the North’s top economic planner and chairman of the North’s State Planning Commission Pak Nam-Ki, is scheduled to visit key industrial facilities during their stay in the South.

We consider it beneficial to the reconciliation, unity and unification of the Korean nation for the North and South to know of each other well, the North Koreans said in a statement after flying into Incheon airport.

We believe this visit will greatly attribute to improving inter-Korean ties and achieving national unity, co-prosperity and national reunification, they said.

The statement stressed that the two sides must hold to an inter-Korean joint declaration for peace and reconciliation which was signed by the North’s leader Kim Jong-Il and President Kim Dae-Jung of the South in 2000.

The administration of Kim Dae-Jung, a Nobel peace prize winner, is in its final months of its single five-year term.

Aside from Pak, the delegation includes four ministerial-level officials. The most outstanding name is Jang Song-Taek, brother-in-law of Kim Jong-Il.

Jang, first vice minister of the Worker’s Party Organization and Guidance Department, is known to have strong influence over the government and the party in the Stalinist state.

Other notables in the entourage include Song Ho-Kyung, vice president of the North Asia-Pacific Peace Committee and Hong So-Hon, dean of the Kim Chaek University of Technology, along with several heads of state-run business concerns.

This delegation is much more high-powered than expected. They will play a positive role in expanding inter-Korean economic exchange, said an official of the Ministry of Finance and Economy in the South.

The North sent a similar economic mission in 1995 but the make-up of that group was more politically oriented.

The visit came despite a crisis which began after the United States reported that North Korea had admitted to having a running nuclear development programme based on enriching uranium despite a 1994 deal which should have stopped all nuclear activities in the country.

North Korea on Friday demanded a non-aggression pact with the United States but rejected US demands that it must dismantle suspect nuclear facilities.

The North Koreans marked the beginning of their itinerary by visiting the Korea Traders Association and toured the sprawling trade exhibition centre, Koex, in the southern Seoul.

They will also visit Samsung Electronics Co., POSCO, Hyundai Motor Co., Gumi industrial complex and oil and chemical refineries in Ulsan.

They are also expected to look over the Busan Container Port and tour Jeju, which has become a favorite stomping ground for North Koreans, before heading back home on November 3. —AFP