SOUTH KOREA TO GET RUSSIAN SIBERIAN BITUMINOUS COAL VIA A LAND ROUTE THROUGH NORTH KOREA AND TRANSFERRED VIA THE PORT RAJIN, N KOREA BY A CHINESE CARGO SHIP TO SOUTH KOREA–THE NEW TRADE ROUTE REDUCES OVERALL COST AND CREATES JOBS FOR THE STARVE WORKERS OF N KOREA SIMILAR TO THE INDUSTRIAL PARK GAESONG COMPLEX JUST ACROSS THE BORDERS OF THE KOREAS A MEAGER START OF COOPERATION–WHICH ALL DEPENDS ON N KOREA POLITICAL STANCE

Since it was established in 2004, the industrial complex intended to create economic synergy by teaming up South Korean capital with cheap North Korean labor has been under constant threat of closure whenever things have gone badly because of the standoff over North Korea's nuclear program.

In South Korea, there is optimism regarding the cost-effective trade route which completed a test run last week by successfully shipping 40,500 tons of Siberian bituminous coal to the South via North Korea's Rajin Port.

Due to North Korea, analysts warn, risks lurk on the new trade route which consists of a 54-kilometer land route between Russia's Khasan and North Korea's Rajin and a sea route between the North Korean port to South Korea's coastal cities.

But they say there is a role that Russia can play to reduce such risks because the country is serious about exporting its resources overseas and using the trilateral partnership to revitalize the poverty-stricken Russian Far East.
Choi Kyung-soo, a director at the North Korean Resources Institute in Seoul, says that a trilateral partnership tends to be less risky than a bilateral project such as the Gaesong Industrial Complex

http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2014/12/116_169046.html