A cargo train service meant to symbolize growing unity between North and South Korea has been running mostly empty since it started in December, according to a Reuters report last week.
The train, which has linked the two countries for the first time in 50 years, carried freight only 14 times in 163 daily runs from Dec. 11 to late August this year, according to South Korea's Unification Ministry.
What little cargo has been moving has been goods ordered by companies in Seoul and made by factories in North Korea, where labor is cheaper. The service connects Seoul to a factory park just north of the border. The report said that moving the goods by truck between the two destinations is cheaper. But South Korea is hopeful the rail service will prosper at some point, as much for the chance to link its territory by rail to China and Russia than in tapping in to North Korea.
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