The accumulated production of the Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea topped 500 million dollars as of last year.

The Unification Ministry said Thursday that production by firms operating in the industrial park stood at some 230 million dollars between January and November of 2008. That’s up 39 percent from the same period in 2007.

As a result, total production at the industrial park since it began operations in January 2005 stood at some 526 million dollars as of November of last year.

Production from the industrial park amounted to some 15 million dollars in 2005, some 74 million in 2006 and then shot up to 184 million dollars in 2007.

The ministry added that the number of firms operating at the industrial complex stood at 93 as of the end of December, up 41 percent from 2007. The number of North Korean workers at the complex also rose 71 percent to stand at some 39-thousand.