South Korea’s Ministry of Unification (MOU) said it has detected new activity at the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC), suggesting North Korea has restarted some factories there without permission from their South Korean proprietors. 

The MOU’s announcement on Monday comes over two weeks after it said that a fire broke out at the South Korean-built complex located on the North Korean side of the border.

“The ROK government has been closely monitoring North Korea’s movements via various channels, and recently detected the movement of unidentified vehicles at the KIC,” deputy ministry spokesperson Cha Deok-chul said at a press briefing, without specifying exactly when the movements took place.

He added that Seoul had contacted Pyongyang to discuss the activity on April 26 via an inter-Korean hotline, but that there has not been any substantive response yet.

“Any and all issues regarding KIC should be resolved through inter-Korean consultation,” Cha said. “We will review countermeasures and share information on the situation with the relevant companies,” he said.

At its peak, the complex housed as many as 125 South Korean companies and 55,000 North Korean workers, producing goods ranging from socks to semiconductor components. The KIC opened in 2004 and was suspended in 2016 in response to North Korea’s test of a nuclear bomb and satellite launch.

While the MOU did not link the April 21 fire to renewed activity at the KIC, the Seoul-based Joongang Ilbo newspaper reported on Monday that South Korea’s military detected the “movements of vehicles and personnel,” citing multiple anonymous sources.

One source told Joongang Ilbo that the fire broke out between the facilities owned by two South Korean companies, raising the possibility it resulted from North Korea attempting to restart production at the complex.  

An NK News review of satellite imagery around this time found no discernable evidence of a fire, making it unclear which structure was ablaze.

However, low-resolution satellite imagery lends support to the unification ministry’s latest announcement. A 400,000 square foot parking lot on the southeast side of the complex, for instance, saw new activity starting in early April and has continued since. 

Low-resolution satellite imagery shows the possible movement of cargo trailers at the Kaesong Industrial Complex’s 400,000 square foot parking lot | Images: Planet Labs PBH (left and right), Google Earth (top right)

A dirt parking lot on the southwest edge of the complex also shows signs of activity. Between April 20 and April 26, a patch of freshly-disturbed dirt or gravel appeared to the east of the complex’s gas station.  

Low-resolution satellite imagery shows the possible movement of a heavy vehicle through a dirt parking lot in the Kaesong Industrial Complex | Images: Planet Labs PBH (left and right), Google Earth (top right)

While the movement of cargo trailers at the massive parking lot is indicative of activity at the complex, higher resolution imagery is required for a more detailed understanding of the observed activity.

This is not the first time media reports suggested North Korea may be illegally operating South Korean-owned equipment at the once jointly-run complex. In 2017, anonymous sources told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that North Korea was “secretly” operating a South Korean-owned textile factory at the KIC, although satellite imagery analysis by Beyond Parallel at the time disputed that report.  

The two Koreas opened the special economic zone in 2004. South Korean firms at the time had hired tens of thousands of North Korean workers to man its various factories, but in 2016, then-President Park Geun-hye pulled all South Korean personnel out of the complex, citing concerns that North Korea may be using revenue from the KIC to fund its nuclear and weapons programs. 

In June 2020, North Korea exploded an inter-Korean liaison office at the complex in response to anti-DPRK leaflet activities by private South Korean organizations. 

Edited by Arius Derr