FINAL ASSEMBLY
North Korea's auto jugger-not comes to a halt
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It seems North Korea won't become the next South Korea when it comes to taking the global car industry by storm. The country's 10-year-old experiment in auto manufacturing is over.
Pyeonghwa Motors, a company started by Sun Myung Moon's South Korea-based Unification Church in 1999, plans to close its factory in Nampo, a port city on North Korea's west coast, The Wall Street Journal reported. The North Korean government is a 30 percent partner in the venture.
The church spent about $55 million to build the factory, which was completed in 2002 and has assembled knockdown kits under license from Fiat and China's Brilliance Auto.
But not too many. According to the Journal, in 2009 Pyeonghwa Motors sold 650 cars.
