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February 10, 2012
South Korea seeks Germany's advice on reunification
Published: 8 Feb 10 08:30 CET
Updated: 8 Feb 10 13:51 CET
Online: http://www.thelocal.de/politics/20100208-25105.html
South Korea is keen to learn from Germany's experience of melding capitalist and communist rival states, officials said after a presidential summit on Monday.
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President Lee Myung-Bak and his counterpart Horst Kohler also had "in-depth" talks on this year's G20 summit to be hosted by Seoul in November, and a free trade agreement between South Korea and the European Union, Lee's office said.
Lee thanked Germany for backing his country's efforts to sign the FTA and sought continued cooperation for early ratification of an initial pact agreed last October.
Germany - which marks the 20th anniversary of its reunification this year - has valuable experience that it can share with divided Korea, officials said.
Lee said South Korea and Germany "have maintained timed-honoured diplomatic relations and cooperative ties in various fields."
"With South and North Korea divided, in particular, Germany's reunification process is thought to be helpful to South Korea," he told Yonhap news agency.
Reunification is the stated goal of both communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea. But analysts say the process would be far more complex than in Germany's case, partly because of the huge wealth gap.
The North's GDP was estimated at around $26 billion in 2008 compared to $1.3 trillion dollars for the South, according to the US State Department.
AFP (news@thelocal.de)
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Your comments about this article:
It think we have a little mix up here. ;-D
I seriously doubt that this is what the US State Department really says. :-D
- it will cost more than you think, more than you can even imagine
- don't turn away offers of help from others thinking you can do it yourself
- don't expect any thanks from the northerners afterwards
Its nice that someone tried to correct the article by adding the word millions behind 1.3 but .......
"The North's GDP was estimated at around $26 billion in 2008 compared to $1.3 million dollars for the South, according to the US State Department. "
.... is somehow still wrong ROFL
You know, the NORTH is that communist country and the south is the capitalist one. ;-D
Therefore i still doubt that the North has a GDP of $26 billion while the South is the one with the tiny $1.3 million
I mean... Kim jong Il would love it would really be this way but sadly for him, it is the other way around. :-D
North: 27.82 Ba Ba Billion
GDP - composition by sector:
agriculture: 23.3%
industry: 43.1%
services: 33.6%
Industries:
military products; machine building, electric power, chemicals; mining (coal, iron ore, limestone, magnesite, graphite, copper, zinc, lead, and precious metals), metallurgy; textiles, food processing; tourism
TOURISM? Maybe they come to buy weapons, sounds like a great vacation.