Trade between the two Koreas fell to the lowest level since 1998 last year, due chiefly to Seoul’s shutdown of a joint factory park as part of its efforts to tighten sanctions over Pyongyang’s unbridled nuclear program, government data showed Monday. 

Two-way volume stood at $332.6 million in 2016, a massive 87.7 percent plunge from a year before, according to figures from Korea Customs Service. Inbound shipments accounted for about 56 percent of the total. 

The latest tally was the lowest since $220 million in 1998, before the Kim Dae-jung administration sharply scaled up cross-border economic exchanges under its reconciliation doctrine known as the Sunshine Policy.
The drastic drop resulted from the Park Geun-hye government’s closure of the Kaesong industrial park last February shortly after North Korea test-fired another long-range missile and carried out its fourth nuclear test. 

On top of the shutdown, Seoul slapped a fresh set of individual sanctions, which included an entry ban on North Korean vessels and an extended blacklist of officials and organizations subject to an asset freeze as well as an embargo on financial and property transactions with South Koreans. 

With virtually all inter-Korean exchanges at a halt, the number of people crossing the border also slid to a 14-year low, marking 14,787 last year, Unification Ministry statistics showed. 

The annual entries, mostly generated from businesspeople and workers at Kaesong, hit a record high of 186,775 in 2008, before gradually decreasing to 132,101 in 2015, with slight fluctuations.

By Shin Hyon-hee (heeshin@heraldcorp.com)