SINGAPORE: Nearly 20 Singaporean business people are expected to visit North Korea to explore opportunities there, an executive said on Thursday (Jun 21), in anticipation of better ties after Singapore played host to a North Korea-US summit.
Michael Heng, a business consultant in Singapore, said he got an invitation for a delegation to visit North Korea on Jun 13, the day after its leader, Kim Jong Un, and US President Donald Trump agreed in Singapore to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
Advertisement"We should start readying now, to get ready to rush the moment the doors open," Heng told Reuters.
Heng said he had been discussing opportunities with a high-level North Korean contact for two months before the summit and he planned to take up to 18 Singaporean businessmen there in September to meet authorities and talk to other foreign business people there.
Time was of the essence, he said.
"We need the first-mover advantage before the place gets swarmed by the Chinese or South Koreans."
AdvertisementAdvertisementSingapore was North Korea's seventh largest trading partner before it implemented UN resolutions imposed for the North's defiant nuclear and missile programmes of more than a dozen years, cutting trade ties and banning transactions with its banks.
Singapore also cancelled the work passes of North Koreans.
Singapore was also home to several North Korean-controlled businesses which came under UN investigations for possible sanctions violations.
The sanctions remain in place and no firm deals would be struck while that was the case, Heng said.
But in the meantime, Singapore business people should get prepared. The trip would focus on specific industries including food, retail, textiles and information and communication technology, he said.
"It is a matter of when the sanctions will be lifted, not if," Heng said.
"If we give them a chance, North Korea will definitely open up to the world."
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