SOUTH KOREA

Trade With North Jumps Eight-Fold: As relations warmed between Communist North Korea and capitalist South Korea, trade between the countries last year rose to nearly eight times the level registered in 1990, officials said last week. The Unification Board said last year’s official trade between South and North Korea amounted to $190 million, up 7.6 times from 1990’s $25 million. A board official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the surge was attributed to improving relations between the two nations, which recently began to end four decades of hostilities with historic agreements on reconciliation. In 1991, the two Koreas carried out direct merchandise exchanges for the first time since their division in 1945. All previous inter-Korean trade had been conducted through intermediaries in Hong Kong or Japan.