With only a week before a scheduled payday at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, North Korea is said to have issued new accounting guidelines that reflect its demand for a wage hike.
 
A Ministry of Unification official said Thursday that North Korean accounting clerks at the inter-Korean complex appeared to have recently received guidelines from the North’s Central Special Zone Development Guidance General Bureau on how to calculate wages and social insurance premiums for March.
 
The official said the guidelines are faithful to the North’s unilateral demand of a minimum monthly wage hike from 70-point-35 dollars to 74 dollars.
 
On Thursday, the South Korean government sent a letter to the South Korean companies at Gaeseong, requesting they calculate the wages for North Korean workers for March based on the existing monthly minimum wage until an agreement on the matter is reached.
 
Last November, the North unilaterally revised labor provisions governing the industrial park, including removing the cap on minimum wage increases, and notified the South that it would raise its workers’ wages by five-and-a-half percent on average starting in March.
 
The South Korean firms in the complex are set to pay workers’ wages for March next Friday.