The personality of Samsung’s sprawling business sovereignty will revisit North Korea this week along with a heads of other tip South Korean corporations.

Jay Y. Lee, Samsung’s billionaire chief, is one of scarcely a dozen business leaders roving to Pyongyang with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday, according to a matter from a president’s office.

Moon will accommodate with North Korean personality Kim Jong Un during a revisit — a initial outing to Pyongyang by a sitting South Korean boss given 2007. It reflects warming ties between a dual governments, that have fueled hopes of deeper mercantile cooperation.

Moon laid out ambitious plans final month that would dramatically renovate and bond a dual economies, giving South Korea a land couple to a rest of a Asian continent, potentially opening adult remunerative trade and infrastructure links.

Such skeleton could eventually advantage Samsung and South Korea’s other outrageous family-run conglomerates, that are famous as chaebol. Beyond Samsung Electronics (SSNLF), a world’s biggest smartphone maker, Samsung businesses also embody engineering, construction and shipbuilding.

“If South Korea can take a beginning to pierce chaebol leaders to North Korea … maybe it would be a good start for South Korean [money] to pierce into Pyongyang,” pronounced Steve Chung, a Korea consultant during a Chinese University of Hong Kong.

But it’s puzzled Samsung will be environment adult emporium in North Korea any time soon.

Lee and a other business leaders are fasten a commission some-more out of a clarity of requirement to a supervision than in hunt of earnest business opportunities, according to SK Kim, an researcher with Daiwa Capital Markets.

Moon’s supervision has been pulling South Korea’s conglomerates to purify adult their acts and urge corporate governance, Kim said, creation it tough to decrease a presidential ask to take partial in a visit.

Lee, whose Korean name is Lee Jae-yong, was convicted final year of temptation and other crime charges though was released from jail in February after his judgment was reduced.

The 50-year-old executive became a de facto arch of Samsung after his father, a group’s chairman, was incapacitated by a heart conflict in 2014.

Other tip South Korean executives streamer to North Korea embody a heads of Hyundai Motor Group (HYMTF), LG Group and SK Group.

They will be assembly with North Korean Vice Premier Ri Ryong Nam, a orator for a South Korean president’s bureau pronounced Monday. He pronounced it was “too soon” to yield an bulletin for a meetings.

The orator forked out that a leaders of South Korean conglomerates had formerly assimilated presidential delegations to North Korea in 2000 and 2007.

A Samsung orator declined to criticism over a matter from a president’s office.

Risky business

North Korea’s isolated economy of 25 million people has appealing elements for unfamiliar investors, according to analysts. They embody a inexpensive workforce, a good geographic plcae and unexploited healthy resources.

Samsung’s investment arm, Samsung Securities, pronounced in Jun that it was substantiating a investigate group to investigate intensity destiny investments in North Korea.

But doing business in North Korea comes with a lot of risks, many particularly complicated US and general sanctions on Pyongyang that companies would have to navigate — unless a restrictions are lifted.

The sanctions have slammed a country’s economy. Estimates expelled by South Korea’s executive bank progressing this year show North Korea’s economy shrank 3.5% in 2017. This year is expected to be even worse.

Given North Korea’s mercantile plight, a “chances are low” that this week’s outing will lead to business opportunities for Samsung or a other South Korean companies, said Kim, a Daiwa analyst.

Foreign companies that have ventured into North Korea formerly have mostly run into problems traffic with a statute regime, including losing control of assets.

If Samsung does eventually set adult emporium in a some-more open North Korea, it might advantage from some code recognition.

The peremptory state has a despotic anathema on importing South Korean smartphones. But such products are mostly accessible on a black market, where Samsung is reportedly one of a many renouned smartphone brands among savvy North Korean buyers.

— Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.