South and North Korea remain at odds with each other over how much South Korean firms operating at a joint industrial park in the North should pay for land use, government officials said Monday.

The two Koreas are in talks over the payment by 124 South Korean firms of land use fees at Kaesong Industrial Complex where about 54,000 North Koreans are working, according to officials at the Unification Ministry.

The complex in the North's border city of Kaesong was opened in 2004 as a symbol of inter-Korean reconciliation. It has served as a major revenue source for the cash-strapped North, while South Korea has utilized cheap but skilled North Korean laborers.

The South has been exempted from land use fees for a decade under the 2004 deal and the two sides have been in talks over the issue since last year.

The North claims that the South should pay $1 per square meter for the total amount land that was supposed to be developed under the 2004 deal, according to an industry source.

But Seoul insists that it will pay around half of the North's offered price for only the land that the South's firms are currently using.

The ministry declined to elaborate, apparently as negotiations are under way, but it added that Seoul is seriously in talks to minimize costs for the South firms.

"The two sides are consistently in talks over the matter," said Park Soo-jin, the deputy spokeswoman for the ministry, said in a regular press briefing. "The two Koreas are seeking to complete the talks within this year."

On Nov. 4, North Korea denied entry to two South Koreans to the factory park amid speculation that it may be trying to gain leverage in the talks on the land use fee.

Two days later, the North overturned its ban on the entry of the two, including a vice chairman of the South's committee on the inter-Korean facilities.

Ending a months-long wage dispute, the two Koreas agreed in August to raise the minimum wage for the North's workers by 5 percent to $73.87 per month. (Yonhap)