North Korea will soon provide about 400 more North Korean laborers to South Korean companies operating in the joint industrial complex South Korea runs in the North’s border town, sources said Tuesday.

It is the first time since the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il late last month that Pyongyang will send fresh laborers to South Korean firms in the Gaeseong Industrial Park.

The provision of new laborers is seen as a signal of the new North Korean leadership attempting to maintain the joint industrial complex, the symbol of inter-Korean economic cooperation, despite the North’s repeated denunciations of the Lee Myung-bak administration for allowing only a former South Korean first lady and a businesswoman to visit Pyongyang to mourn Kim‘s death.

“North Korea will provide about 400 more laborers to the Gaeseong Industrial Complex on the 26th (of January) immediately after the Lunar Yew Year’s holiday,” a source at the Gaeseong complex said.

A Unification Ministry official also said that he “heard that North Korea will soon increase the laborers at the Gaeseong Industrial Park.”

The North had planned to increase the number of North Korean laborers late last month but suspended the plan due to the sudden death of Kim on Dec. 19.

Hundreds of South Korean factories in the industrial park employ 48,708 North Koreans as of the end of November last year, up 2,400 from a year earlier. (Yonhap News)