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| Business Words in the News
Friday 05 October 2001
Vocabulary from the business news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
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North and South Korea in tourism talks
Summary: Officials from North and South Korea have been holding formal talks this week to try to restart a troubled tourism project. Delegates met in the North Korean Diamond Mountain resort which first opened to South Korean tourists three years ago. But it's been running at huge losses. This report from Caroline Gluck.
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| | The News | |
| | | Until now the only way for tourists to get there has been by lengthy and costly cruise tours. But the South Korean company which runs the tours, Hyundai Asan, scaled back the project this year because it was losing hundreds of millions of dollars. The company had paid twelve-million dollars a month to the North in return for exclusive rights to operate the project but it was forced to cut this back because of mounting losses and a drop in tourist numbers.
Opening a land route across the two countries' heavily fortified frontier, saving time and money, is expected to significantly boost the tourism venture. South Korean officials hope that an existing unpaved road linking the two countries could be opened by this year, with a wider expressway built next year. The cruise tours to Diamond Mountains began three years ago and were seen as a breakthrough in relations between the two Koreas, who still remain technically at war. The project has been a key source of income for the impoverished North.
CAROLINE GLUCK, BBC, SEOUL
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| | The Words
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| | | costly
expensive
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| | | the South Korean company which runs the tours
the South Korean company which organises the tours
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| | | scaled back the project
made the project smaller
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| | | exclusive rights to operate the project
special permission to take charge of the project
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| | | mounting losses
losing more and more money
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| | | heavily fortified
very strongly defended
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| | | tourism venture
tourism project
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| | | a key source of income
an essential source of money
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| | | impoverished
very poor
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