North Korea's recent designation of Shinuiju as a Special Administrative Region was preceded by long-time preparations. "Though it was kicked off under an edict North Korean leader Kim Jung-il issued to economic bureaucrats early in October last year, the project started earlier," said a Seoul government official.

It is highly likely that Kim Jong Il made a final decision to open the northwestern border city of the North immediately after his tour of Shanghai, China in January last year, during which he himself witnessed what he called "the creation of a new world." Dropping in on Shinuiju on his way to Pyongyang, Kim inspected many factories and corporations there and instructed officials concerned to develop the city into a special economic zone, modeled after Shanghai, among other cities. Economic officials subsequently frequented China to undergo "special administration regiom studies," in the course of which rumors spread that Chinese businesses planned to establish an industrial park in Shinuiju.

But Kim appears to have envisioned making Shinuiju "a special economic zone" much earlier than that. In October 1999 when Hyundai Asan, the North Korea arm of the Hundai Group, was negotiating with the North on the development of an industrial estate in Haeju, South Hwanghae Province, Kim Jong Il, meeting with Chung Ju-yung, the late founder and chairman of the group, suggested that Hyundai opt for Shinuiju. Hyundai was negative toward the suggestion on grounds that the Seoul-Shinuiju railroad remains severed, and that maritime transport costs are too high.

Given that Shinuiju is the North's gateway to China facing Dandong, and that it can play the role of a transportation base linking the two Koreas with China when the Seoul-Shinuiju railroad is again linked, the talks never ceased in the 1990s that the border city would be made a "special economic zone." Also heightening the prospect were the facts that the border city, located near the Supung Dam and the Yalu River, is blessed with the sources of electric power and industrial water, and that it has many rich resident Chinese merchants.

A report also had it that Pyongyang in preparing to make the border city into a special zone, was moving some citizens of the city to new towns built south of Shinuiju. (Kim In-ku, ginko@chosun.com )