By Jon Herskovitz and Kim Junghyun
SEOUL (Reuters) - A daily cargo train service running between North and South Korea and once hailed as a symbol of economic cooperation has been running empty about 90 percent of the time, officials said on Thursday.
The first regular train service in more than 50 years between the two sides began in December along a 20-km (12-mile) stretch that runs northwest of Seoul and heads to a factory park just north of heavily armed border where South Korean firms use cheap North Korean labour to make goods.
The train carried freight only 14 times in 163 daily runs from December 11 last year to late August this year, according to the South's Unification Ministry. Daily service was cut during the 1950-53 Korean War.
"The operation is largely symbolic but it shows a continuance of regular exchanges despite frayed ties between the two countries," said a ministry official who asked not to be named.
Ties between the two Koreas, still technically at war after hostilities ended in 1953 with a truce, not a peace treaty, have chilled since conservative President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South in February and cut what once had been a free flow of aid to the impoverished North.
An angry Pyongyang in response has threatened to sever all ties and labelled Lee "a war-bent U.S. sycophant."
Most of the cargo going between the South and the scores of South Korean firms operating at the Kaesong factory park in the North moves by truck, which is cheaper.
But South Korean officials have had high hopes of running trains through North Korea, which could cut costs in shipping cargo to China, Russia and beyond.
South Korea has built two lines into the North -- the one that serves Kaesong and another on the east coast that is not used. The ministry said it plans to keep the daily cargo service to maintain the integrity of the line.
Separately, the ministry said in a document presented to parliament on Thursday that it did not expect North Korea to make good on its threat to cut ties with its wealthy neighbour.
"Since North Korea is well aware of the counterproductive effect of severing the ties, it is believed they would be careful in implementing such extreme measures," it said.
The rail service was one of the few achievements implemented from a rare summit in October 2007 between North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun, who pledged billions of dollars of aid at the meeting in Pyongyang.
Lee, who took office in February, has promised a lavish aid plan for North Korea but said the South will only provide the money when the North scraps its nuclear weapons programme.
(Editing by Nick Macfie)
