NK vows to expand insurance business despite int'l sanctions

SEOUL, July 24 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's state-run Korea National General Insurance Co. has resolved to further expand its business in defiance of U.N. sanctions on the North's nuclear and missile programs, a North Korean daily reported Monday.

The resolve was made at a ceremony to mark the company's 70th anniversary, with its chief Hong Myong-ryong attending, the Rodong Sinmun, the paper of the North's ruling Workers' Party, said.

Pointing out that even the insurance business, directly linked to humanitarianism, is under unfair sanctions, participants vowed to crush the enemies' sanction plots and further develop the business down the road, the paper said.

The North Korean insurer, which had reportedly raked in a considerable amount of foreign currency via reinsurance contracts in Europe, was put on the individual sanctions lists by the EU in April last year and the United States in December as part of punishment against the North's nuclear and missile ambitions.

At that time, the EU claimed that sizable profits, created by the Pyongyang-based insurance company and its branches in Germany and Britain, could be instrumental for the North's nuclear and missile programs.

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