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Ex-envoy advises investing in North
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November 12, 2009
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|  | | Maurice Strong, former UN envoy to North Korea, speaks at the Mirae Asset Securities Investment Forum yesterday. Provided by Mirae Asset Securities |
Investing in North Korea may sound like an extremely risky, even idiotic, idea, but Maurice Strong, former United Nations envoy to North Korea, said he believes there are lucrative investment opportunities in the Stalinist country.
North Korea has recently ratcheted up efforts to attract more foreign investment, establishing a new corporation in Australia for that purpose, Strong said at the annual Mirae Asset Securities Investment Forum held in downtown Seoul yesterday. Strong advised adventurous investors to take the opportunity before it’s too late.
His observation may sound optimistic or far-fetched to skeptics, given the two Koreas just this week engaged in a military skirmish on their maritime border. But Strong contended that in the long term, reunification between the two Koreas is inevitable, and South Korea’s well-developed economic infrastructure, if coupled with ample mining and other natural resources still left undeveloped in the North, would create enormous economic synergy on the Korean Peninsula.
Strong called the naval skirmish “not surprising at all,” stressing that Pyongyang’s action was part of its way of saying the country would not give up its nuclear programs without firm security reassurances from the United States.
By Han Ae-ran, Jung Ha-won [hawon@joongang.co.kr]
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