SEOUL, April 24: South Korea plans to invite US investors to an industrial estate this year in an effort to expedite foreign investment, officials said on Tuesday.

The plan to hold an investor relations gathering for US companies in October at the complex in the border city of Kaesong was endorsed at an economic meeting chaired by Finance and Economy Minister Kwon O-Kyu, his office said. South Korea would soon start receiving applications from foreign investors interested in opening factories in the Seoul-funded industrial estate.

Hong Suk-Woo, deputy minister of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, said the trip would permit American businessmen to see first hand the growth of the estate.

“The IR trip is not directly related to the recently agreed-upon free trade pact between South Korea and the United States,” he told Yonhap news agency.

The two Koreas — still technically at war — agreed to build Kaesong following their first and only summit in 2000.

South Korea hopes to make Kaesong a development model, combining its capital and the North's cheap labour, to reduce tensions and introduce the hardline state to the market economy.

But the United States refused to recognise Kaesong products as South Korean goods when the two countries struck a free trade deal earlier this month.

Some critics say Kaesong is providing hard currency which the North can use for its missile and nuclear programmes.

South Korean officials deny this and say Kaesong is teaching the communist state the workings of a free-market economy.

Currently, some 13,000 workers are employed by 22 South Korean firms which produce labour-intensive products such as garments and kitchenware.—AFP