[Yonhap News Photo]
South Korea is considering blacklisting a Chinese firm suspected of being involved in illicit deals with North Korea as part of efforts to prevent money from flowing into the communist state that is defiantly pursuing a nuclear weapons program, government sources said Tuesday.
The Seoul government is currently reviewing "if and when" it will place China's Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development Co. on the list of companies subject to its own unilateral sanctions, according to the sources close to the matter.
The Chinese firm is under investigation on suspicions that it exported aluminum oxide, which can be used in enriching uranium, a nuclear bomb ingredient, to the North at least twice in recent years. If it is blacklisted, its assets in South Korea will be subject to oversight and any financial deals with South Koreans will be banned.
In September, the US blacklisted the Chinese company along with its owner and three other company officials in the first move ever to impose sanctions on a Chinese entity over Pyongyang's weapons programs. Currently, the United Nations Security Council is working on a fresh resolution against the North following its fifth nuclear test in September.
(Yonhap)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
