Hyundai Asan chief Cho resigns over N.K. tours

Hyundai Asan CEO Cho Kun-shik said yesterday he decided to step down to take responsibility for failing to resume the South Korean firm`s tour business in North Korea.

"I want to resign as head of Hyundai Asan at the upcoming shareholders` meeting, as I couldn`t help resume the tours and normalize our business," Cho said in an e-mail sent to his employees.

"I thought it was critically important for me to take full responsibility as company head," he said.

The company`s shareholders` meeting is scheduled to be held on Wednesday next week.

Company officials said his sudden offer to resign was unexpected. "We knew only after he sent us the e-mail. It was totally unexpected and employees feel really sad about it," said Roh Ji-hwan, a spokesman of Hyundai Asan.



"We have been doing everything we could, but we couldn`t resume the tour."

The tour operator had been offering tours to Mount Geumgang since 1998, but the South Korean government halted the tours in July 2008 after a South Korean woman was shot and killed while on vacation in Geumgang by North Korean soldiers.

Hyundai used to offer a second tour program, this one to Gaeseong, which is where a joint South-North industrial complex is located. That tour was also suspended in December 2008 due to heightened tensions with the North over Pyongyang`s nuclear programs.

Cho, who was former vice minister of unification, took office as CEO of Hyundai Asan in August 2008, just one month after the suspension of Mount Geumgang tours.

Since North Korean authorities detained a Hyundai Asan employee in March last year for allegedly slandering Pyongyang`s regime, Cho visited Gaeseong 16 times to help the man get released and to resume the tours.

However, as the resumption of tours was indefinitely postponed and Hyundai Asan`s losses grew, Cho had to reduce the number of Hyundai Asan employees to 387 from 1,084 to cut costs.

According to the company, losses occurred from the suspension of Mount Geumgang and Gaeseong tours mounted to 257.9 billion won as of February.

The company also sold some assets including 51 Geungang tour busses and other equipment used in the Gaeseong industrial park.

The prospect for the resumption of the inter-Korean tour business remains grim, as Seoul has demanded an official apology for the shooting death.

(yoonmi@heraldm.com)



By Kim Yoon-mi