South and North Korea opened a meeting over wages for North Korean workers at the joint industrial park in Kaesong, but failed to narrow differences, a South Korean government official said Wednesday.
  

The North unilaterally decided to raise wages by 5.18 percent to $74 per month starting in March for about 53,000 North Korean workers hired by South Korea's small-and medium-sized firms at the Kaesong Industrial Complex in the North's border city of the same name.
  

On Tuesday, officials from the Kaesong Industrial District Management Committee, a quasi-government organization headed by a South Korean official, and the North's Central Special Development Guidance Bureau held their first meeting on the issue, the official said.
  

"There was no change in the North's position that a wage hike is an issue of sovereignty, while we maintained our position that wage hikes should be settled through inter-Korean talks," the official said on condition of anonymity.
  

The meeting took place shortly after a group of South Korean businessmen with factories in the complex visited the park for an emergency meeting with relevant North Korean officials.
  

Seoul has not accepted the North's unilateral move, saying Pyongyang violated a 2004 agreement that calls for two separate quasi-government committees from the two sides to set wages together. The wage cap has been set at 5 percent.
  

South Korea plans to propose future talks to North Korea through the committee, according to government officials. The North has so far spurned the South's call for government-level dialogue.
  

Seoul's efforts for the talks have gained urgency as the deadline for the payment of March wages is April 20.
  

The industrial complex opened in the early 2000s and is the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. It has served as a major revenue source for the cash-strapped communist country. (Yonhap)